Projects

Latest Projects for 2011

The Minister for the Status of Women, Kate Ellis has announced at the end of June 2011, new funding for the National Women’s Alliances to undertake some important projects on emerging issues affecting women and gender equality. (click here to read more)

The NRWC will lead two of these projects:

1. Empowering rural women to lead their community in the implementation of the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children -  National Rural Women’s Coalition (NRWC) and Australian Women Against Violence Alliance (AWAVA). The NRWC and fellow Alliance AWAVA will work together with the Queensland Centre for Domestic and Family Violence Research at Central Queensland University, to develop a toolkit and guide to support women to implement the federal government’s National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children. The resources will focus on preventing violence before it occurs by working to change underlying causes.
2. Developing disaster resilient rural communities – The NRWC will develop a toolkit and manual supporting women in rural, regional and remote communities to undertake leadership roles in disaster preparation.

Other Projects for 2011

1. Housing policy that addresses the needs of women

The NRWC is collaborating with fellow Alliance, Economic Security4Women, and the National Foundation for Australian Women in a project led by the Equality Rights Alliance on a project to:

• illuminate the position of women of all ages in the housing market
• monitor trends in women’s housing security, and
• explore options for improving access for women to affordable housing which is compliant with universal design standards as set out in the disability-friendly Liveable Housing Design standards, launched by the Federal Government in July 2010.

2. Recognising Women Farmer Grant

This project aims to strengthen rural women farmers and related business networks by capacity building amongst targeted young women in the current National Women’s Alliances.  These women will improve knowledge, skills, networks, support systems and rural business leadership capabilities through online learning programs via the NRWN (National Rural Women’s Network) creating a greater diversity of future rural women leaders from a range of backgrounds and interests.

Activities will include:

• Guest lectures and interaction via webinar online
• Online training sessions
• Online blogs developed by the group targeting and sharing their particular issues
• Tutorless tutorials – women discussing issues and solving problems together online using Elluminate software
• Development of and ongoing issues board on NRWN website
• Expanding the collection of good news stories through the “sustainable communities” program
• Skype interaction
• Organisational preparation and delivery of  meetings
• Mentoring sessions
• Review sessions
• Evaluation sessions