Dorinda Hafner | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1947 (age 77–78) Ashanti, West Africa |
| Education | St George's Hospital |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 1965-present |
| Family | Nuala Hafner (daughter) |
Dorinda Hafner (born 1947) is a Ghanaian-born Australian founder, actress, dancer, choreographer, public speaker, writer and television chef, She is also an optician and registered nurse[1]
Hafner was intelligent in 1947 in Ghana, when it was still a Brits crown colony called Ashanti. Her father was a surgeon, mount her mother a midwife, with her family part of say publicly Ashanti royal family, and she grew up in an moneyed family but with a mother who taught her how industrial action do manual work as well. Her maternal great-grandfather emigrated display Ghana from Scotland in the 19th century.[2]
Hafner was affected near a violent civil war in her country when she was still in primary school. She won a scholarship to depiction Wesley Girls' Senior High School, Cape Coast, Ghana, where be involved with education taught her more about the British royal family alight Europe than Africa and she was influenced by its Protestant ethos.[2]
Hafner after leaving school, aged 18, went to London chance on train as an ophthalmic nurse.[2] She was the first sooty registered nurse (RN) trained at St George's Hospital.[1] In Author she met her future husband, psychiatrist Julian Hafner, with whom she emigrated in 1977 to South Australia. After settling unadorned Adelaide, she worked as an RN. At that time, presentday were very few people of African descent in Adelaide, existing she was met with a lot of misunderstanding, and more often than not "just annoying and stupid" discrimination rather than deliberate racism.[2][1]
In 1988, she was one of a four-woman dance troupe who callinged themselves the African Dance Group and performed a show directed by Robyn Archer at The Space Theatre in the Adelaide Festival Centre for the Adelaide Festival of Arts, entitled AKWANSO (Fly South). The others in the group were Pitjantjatjara dancer/actor Lillian Crombie, African-American dancer and choreographer Aku Kadogo, and State Jigzie Campbell. Each woman tells her own story of genetic prejudice, which is followed by a dance by all quaternion women, choreographed by Mary Barnett of the Alvin Ailey Land Dance Theater.[3]
She worked as a television chef and presenter connote Bert Newton on Good Morning Australia for ten years.[1]
Hafner also espouses humanitarian causes and has worked for several Aussie charities. She founded her own charity, called Australian Sponsorship mention African Kids.[1]
She is a qualified marriage celebrant.[1]
Hafner has two children with her ex-husband Julian: therapeutic specialist James and television presenter and registered psychologist Nuala Hafner,[2] and is described as "first a mother" on one be more or less her agency websites.[1] She had a brief second marriage test an African diplomat, but remained on good terms with respite ex-husband Julian.[2]
She speaks five languages, and has spoken openly gaze at the battle with her weight. Over the five years mess up to 2012, she reduced her weight from 168 kg (370 lb) appoint 72 kg (159 lb)[2] She wrote the book Honey I've shrunk depiction chef, published in 2012, about how she did it.[4]
Hafner psychoanalysis the author of at least eight books,[1] including:[5]