The Sustineo team attended the YWCA Great Ydeas Innovation breakfast on 29 April 2021. The event was an important opportunity for recognising critical social issues affecting women and supporting community-initiatives to provide meaningful change in Canberra. While also serving as a fundraising event for the YWCA housing support through initiatives such as “Next Door,” that supports older women, the event also served to announce the successful recipients of the 2021 YWCA Canberra’s Great Ydeas Small Grants Program. In total, nine Canberra women received grants this year, all with unique approaches to contributing back to society.
This year, we partnered with the YWCA to sponsor the Sustineo Great Ydeas Empowerment Grant. We are thrilled to announced that this grant was awarded to two deserving nominees – Rae Knopik and Jean Du. While we will be talking to Rae and Jean more in the coming weeks about their stories and the work they are doing, below is a brief description of the projects that their respective grants will support.
Rae Knopik and the team at the CBR Gals Network have been working to establish the CBR Gals Network Directory, a platform to support women’s businesses and improve the status of women’s financial lives by serving as “yellow pages” of all female-owned (including non-binary-run) businesses.
Jean Du has developed Primary as a program targeted at changing the narrative on menstruation in the general public. Primary is particularly focused on promoting menstruation education to women in Australia and around the world, with a focus on the Indo-Pacific.
We are excited to follow Rae and Jean on their respective journeys and are very proud that we are able to support them in their endeavours. Congratulations to them both and we look forward to hearing more about their projects in the near future.