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Esther Charlesworth, founder of humanitarian organisation Architects Without Frontiers (AWF) and a professor at RMIT University’s school of architecture and urban design, is the youngest child in a family of seven.
She's got quite a story of her own. But over a 90-minute meal in which she travels from 1980s Melbourne to Harvard Uni, through the troubled Balkans and Africa, then back to a women's refuge in Melbourne's Preston, it becomes apparent that although she's making her own mark on the world, she's doing so in the shadow of her siblings.
Charlesworth, and her twin sister, are the youngest in a family of seven children who are all uber-achievers: Sara is a professor of industrial relations; Hilary is an international lawyer and ad hoc judge in the International Court of Justice; Stephen was in I'm Talking, Kate Ceberano's first band and – according to his younger sister – wrote most of the songs; Lucy was a diplomat for 30 years; Bruno is an entertainment lawyer, film producer, a modern Renaissance man who lives between Paris and St Kilda; and twin sister Anna, a metalwork artist.