Chris Friday Sub-Fund
$2,715 grant
To provide monetary support for Aboriginal women and their children fleeing family violence by helping them to pay bonds.
Con Irwin Sub-Fund
$6,190 grant
Deakin University’s Sexual Lives & Respectful Relationships (SL&RR) Peer Education program is a sexuality rights and violence prevention program for people with an intellectual disability in the community. In October 2017 Deakin will host the first SL&RR professional development day. The day is an opportunity for information sharing, professional development and networking for the SL&RR trainers, with a focus on developing group work and facilitation skills. This grant will make it possible for SL&RR Peer Educators (people with intellectual disability) to attend and be part of the development day.
$7,926 grant
This grant will assist Fitzroy Legal Service to meet current and anticipated future unmet need relating to assistance for victims/survivors of family violence, particularly women from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds. It will fund training and registration for two family violence lawyers to become registered migration agents, as well as registration through the Migration Agents Registration Authority which is required for a lawyer to provide migration advice.
Janet Clarke Hall – Respectful relationships education for young men and women living and studying at Janet Clarke Hall, University of Melbourne
$3,000 grant
This project will enhance the College’s current program and commitment to building and maintaining a respectful and safe community through JCH’s orientation and transition programs. The main aim is to devise a program that can be used as a model or blueprint for other residential colleges nationally, to enhance awareness around respectful relationships in order to prevent sexual violence and better support survivors.
Essie Burbridge Sub-Fund
$3,600 grant
Voices of Peace will empower recently arrived and settled refugees from Assyrian Chaldean background to establish a Women’s Choir. This project, supported by a partnership between Community Music Victoria and Foundation House, will involve leadership training, provision and development of resources, and opportunities for wider social connection.
$6,115 grant
Living, Learning, Belonging is a program for women of diverse backgrounds to come together for a common purpose of building and strengthening their sense of belonging to Australian society. This will be done through regular workshops, deliberations, meaningful engagement, facilitated by experienced group moderators. Apart from exploring and unpacking the diverse cultures the women come from, additional learning will take place around the challenges the women are facing in their daily life in Australia, such as parenting in a new culture and understanding Australian services and systems.
Fay Marles Equal Opportunity Sub-Fund
Swinburne University of Technology – Implementing International Sex Discrimination Policies: the Power of the Foreign Affairs Minister
$7,039 grant
This research will examine the enablers and barriers of implementing international sex discrimination laws and the outcomes to provide women with equal rights and opportunities. The research will analyse best practices and outcomes, and will make recommendations to strengthen human rights policies for women in Victoria and across Australia.
Fleur Spitzer Sub-Fund
Family Life – Catch Up: Securing Futures for Vulnerable Older Women
$5,419 grant
With older women who are already engaged with the organisation, Family Life will co-design Catch Up, an empowerment program for older women from diverse backgrounds. The 300+ women volunteering with Family Life’s Op Shop social enterprises and services, mostly who are over 60 years of age, will be the research partners to better understand the needs, barriers and gaps. Together they will customise a response that helps older women to draw on and navigate what is already available, and resource them to ‘Catch Up’ on ageing with financial and housing security, dignity and community support.
Jean McCaughey Social Justice Sub-Fund
$7,500 grant
The Welfare to Work and the Experience of Marginalised Single Mothers research project aims to examine and understand the lived experiences of 20 single mothers with school aged children who are on the Welfare to Work program as part of their mutual obligation to receive Parenting Payment Single or Newstart Allowance. The project will expand upon a preliminary study undertaken by Good Shepherd in 2017 that investigated how the Welfare to Work program impacts on the financial security and self-reliance of single mothers. This next iteration will reach a more diverse cross-section of marginalised single mothers.
Joan Hudson Sub-Fund
$5,000 grant
Caring Mums is a confidential, home-based, free-of-charge and non-denominational program that provides emotional support to mums of newborn babies and women during pregnancy from a wide range of socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. Caring Mums plans to reach out to support additional vulnerable, isolated and at-risk women in a new geographical area and continue and extend the capacity of the program. It will promote the program locally, training local residents as volunteers to add to its already diverse volunteer pool.
Birth for Humankind – Birth Support Program for Socioeconomically Disadvantaged, Vulnerable Women
$1,738 grant
The birth support program gives women experiencing financial hardship and social disadvantage access to free pregnancy, birth and early parenting support. By coming alongside vulnerable women in a critical juncture in their lives – as they navigate pregnancy, child-birth and the newborn period and become mothers – Birth for Humankind turns what might have been a very lonely, overwhelming time into a time of celebration and validation, contributing to and creating happier and healthy mums and babies.
Loula Rodopoulos Sub-Fund
Farnham Street Neighbourhood Learning Centre – Wonderful Women’s Health: A Social Inclusion Program for Women with Mental Health Issues
$4,000 grant
The Wonderful Women’s Health Project will involve strengthening the social inclusion partnership between Farnham Street Neighbourhood Learning Centre and local mental health agencies in the Flemington area, including: Norfolk Terrace Community Care Unit, Arion Park, Cohealth and Waratah Mental Health Services, to ensure a supported transition back into the community for women with more serious mental health issues. The project will develop four new programs for women with mental health issues: creative writing, art therapy, anxiety support group and a singing group.
$2,000 grant
Writers Victoria will offer a six-month digital residency for a Victorian women writer. The residency will include: paid commissions, professional development training profile-raising and facilitated networking opportunities. Commissions will be published through the Writers Victoria website and partner outlets to be brokered in consultation with the resident writer, according to her interest areas. While open to all female-identifying writers, priority will be given to writers facing intersecting barriers to participation in the literary industry, particularly single mothers.
Sacred Heart Mission – Outlandish
$5,500 grant (funded through the generous fundraising of the Daughters of Penelope chapter of AHEPA)
Outlandish is a structured community volunteering program that enables adult women experiencing homelessness, disadvantage and social isolation to successfully re-integrate into community life. During the program women volunteer over 6-18 months with environmental and animal welfare organisations whilst practising reflective learning, which enables them to: regain trust in others; uncover and build on personal strengths and abilities; steadily grow self-confidence and self-reliance; discover personal aspirations and set goals; and establish social and economic networks.
Prue Myer Sub-Fund
$9,100 grant
This project will provide financial literacy training for refugee women from African, Burmese and Iraqi backgrounds leading to a train-the-trainer model. Women will be able to take greater financial control of their lives, leading to financial security for themselves, their families and more opportunities for engaging in the wider community. The program will coincide with the homework club in St Albans where many of the women currently bring their children. The program has two parts: teaching financial literacy followed by mentoring to utilise the skills learnt.
Youth Plus Foundation – St Joseph’s FLC Girls to the Front Circus Training
$5,000 grant
Working with trainers from Women’s Circus in Footscray, the program will engage young women from St Joseph’s Flexible Learning Centre in North Melbourne and train them in circus skills. The school will work with qualified trainers from Women’s Circus to engage disengaged students in learning that is hands-on, meaningful and enjoyable, with the intention of showing them that they are able to achieve anything they set their mind to.
