Last night saw three amazing women get up on stage and pitch three incredibly worthwhile projects to a packed audience at the Brunswick Picture House.
The three projects that got to pitch had been selected from the 19 submissions to the Northern Rivers Community Foundation’s (NRCF) Women’s Giving Circle (WGC).
‘This is the third year that we have run the WGC grants program,’ explained Amy Colli as she introduced the program.
‘Our aim for the WGC was to reach 100 women giving this year and we have reached 127.’
Each woman who joins the WGC donates $1,000 a year towards the program that uses part of the money to support grass roots women’s programs and initiatives across the Northern Rivers and the other part goes into a perpetuity fund to support future programs.
All three pitches spoke to programs that supported women and girls who had been victims of sexual assault and domestic violence.
Haus of Armour
Kate Jackson pitched for support for her project Haus of Armour that provides free one-on-one styling service to women who have experienced domestic violence providing them with three outfits to walk away with.
‘One in four women in Australia will experience domestic violence (DV) and this erodes women’s self-worth, impacts health and wellbeing and impacts children,’ explained Kate.
‘In the last year in the Northern Rivers there were 1,349 DV assaults reported to the police.
‘Clothes are a form of armour and at the Haus of Armour we use fashion to help a woman rebuild her self-worth, her confidence and dignity.’
Self defence
The second pitch was from Crystal Whitney from Women Up North and looks at empowering women and girls through self-defence.
‘One in three women will experience physical violence before the age of 15, one in five will be sexually assaulted, and one in four will experience intimate partner violence during their lifetime,’ explained Crystal.
The important thing is that when women fight back 68 per cent avoid rape, and 81 per cent will avoid a violent situation if they fight back or run.
‘I am passionate about making girls feel safe and empowered and want to create positive change for women and girls,’ said Crystal.
‘This program is about empowering women and girls via a self defence facilitator. It is based on the five principles of: think, yell, run, fight and talk. It is not just physical defence but also looks at how to set boundaries and say no. The workshops don’t just teach the individuals doing the workshops but facilitate the sharing of knowledge, removing barriers, and generational change.’
Empowering change
But it was the final presentation that won the most voting hearts in the end was EmpowerHER program by Human Nature adventure therapy pitched by Jen Parke.
The program works with young women who have experienced sexual assault, violence and trauma and works with them in outside active settings including surfing and adventure camps.
One poignant story was of a young woman who had a teacher who felt that something wasn’t right managed to get her onto the program.
‘During the program Ruby finally disclosed violent sexual abuse from stepfather,’ explained Jen.
Ruby has now gone on to study in the area of youth social work will be doing one of her placements with the Human Nature program.
‘What we know is there is a huge surge in young women who have experienced abuse. We have contacted people who had done this course to ask them what worked and what didn’t and we have transformed our service based on their feedback,’ explained Jen.
‘If we receive this funding it will allow us to expand our service delivery. It will allow 15 young women to have six sessions each that will help build self esteem, capacity, resilience, self confidence, maintain healthy relationships.
‘It will also allow us to invest in evaluation so that we can get funding with teh hope to set up model that can be used across the country.’
All funded
All three programs received funding with the major funding going to the EmpowerHER program and Haus of Armour and the self defence program receiving the minor funding allocations for their pitch projects.
Speaking to The Echo NRCF CEO Sam Henderson said, ‘ Some of the stats that were shared by the organisations are distressing, but it is amazing to see that there is positive local action being taken.’
Wow..excellent work well done .