Deborra-Lee Furness

Deborra-Lee Furness is an internationally acclaimed actor as well as a passionate supporter of children and defender of their human rights across the globe. She founded National Adoption Awareness Week in Australia when she recognized the great need to address what needs to be done in serving abandoned and vulnerable children around the world. In 1995, she starred in the title role in the television series Correlli, where she met her future husband, Hugh Jackman.

An adoptive mother of two, Furness is known for her work assisting orphans globally and streamlining international adoptions, especially in her native Australia where she is a patron, and one of the creators, of National Adoption Awareness Week. She has addressed the National Press Club of Australia on the subject of adoption laws in Australia. Furness is a patron of the Lighthouse Foundation for displaced children and International Adoption Families for Queensland. She is also a World Vision ambassador and serves on the Advisory Committee for Film Aid International, working with refugees throughout the world.

Deborra-Lee is Executive Director for the Worldwide Orphans Foundation Australia and was honored at the Worldwide Orphans Gala in New York City for her work in advocacy for vulnerable children. She received the first 2013 National Angel in Adoption Award from the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI) in Washington DC in October. The CCAI’s Angels in Adoption Program honors individuals, couples and organisations that have made extraordinary contributions on behalf of children in need of families.

It is her passion that children all over the world be given every chance to live a fulfilled and joyous life and achieve their full potential.

In 2014, Deborra-Lee Furness was named as the New South Wales Australian of the Year for her work in adoption campaigning. The Australian of the Year will be announced on 25 January, 2015.