Programs

Women's Health Action Plan

WHG is entering a new strategic planning cycle and we recognise that our capacity to work effectively across the Grampians region is intrinsically linked to our capacity to work with the organisations and systems currently supporting women. We also recognise that our capacity to advocate for women and for the strengthening of the systems supporting women, we need to understand the issues for both women and organisations. To do this we will meet with service providers in a series of focus groups across the Wimmera in February and March and across the Grampians Pyrenees region during May and June 2009.

The Action Plan focus groups aim to:
  • Identify issues for women as seen by the service providers with 'on the ground knowledge'
  • Understand issues for the service providers supporting women, including identifying gaps in existing service systems
  • Map services/people that provide support to women (e.g. Health Services, Community Health Services, Maternal and Child Health Nurses, Counselling Services and Community Leaders) and develop a resource for both women and service providers
  • Explore how WHG may be able to support workers in the existing systems i.e. with health promotion or gender specific information, provision of training usually based in metropolitan and larger regional centres etc
  • Identify the capability of small towns to use/access information technology
  • Develop an Action Plan and evidence based support document to inform WHG's ongoing work and to advocate for women and organisations at State and Federal policy level

Ballarat’s Great Women

The campaign to name Ballarat’s Great Women was inspired by the 2006 special publication by The Courier titled 100 Ballarat Greats. It was a terrific list of people that Ballarat are right to be proud of, however, with only 14 individual women named we decided to launch a campaign which recognised the unique and valuable contribution of women.

Women’s Health Grampians called for nominations of great women, current or past, who have contributed to make Ballarat great or have brought greatness to the city. It is important to say that women were nominated for a vast range of reasons and what makes them ‘great’ is in the eye of the nominator. So many women have done incredible things – often with little fanfare or recognition. The great women we know, don’t usually see themselves as extraordinary, they often just do what they feel has to be done.

Stories collected prior to 2009 were compiled in a book Amongst Ballarat's Finest. We plan to have an ongoing nomination process to continue to collect women's stories. To submit a nomination form please see Ballarat's Great Women nominate form webpage or contact on freecall number 1800 013 432

Amongst Ballarat's Finest can be purchased directly from WHG's office or by using the order form below.
Amongst Ballarat's Finest Order Form

White Ribbon Day

Statistics show that during a lifetime over a third of Australian women will experience at least one incident of violence (ABS 2006). It is because of these statistics that WHG become involved with White Ribbon Day (WRD) and the campaign to eliminate violence against women in our society. WHG has been involved with the Ballarat White Ribbon Day Committee (BWRDC) since 2006. BWRDC was established in 2004 to join the international WRD campaign which asks men within our society to stand up and say no to violence against women. 
 

The last 12 months has been an exciting time for the BWRDC with a huge amount of growth and expansion of the project. 2008 saw the induction of another 10 senior ambassadors bringing the total to 30. 2008 also saw the first ambassador’s education session. This gave ambassadors the opportunity to increase their knowledge and understanding of violence against women and to build their capacity to take the WRD message back to their local community, workplace or school.


2008 also saw the highly successful introduction of youth ambassadors within secondary schools in the Central Highlands region. Youth ambassadors can deliver the message to a younger audience that has not been reached in previous campaigns and the work achieved by the ambassadors within the schools was inspiring.


On November 25, the BWRDC hosted the official WRD launch at the Ballarat Mining Exchange. The launch surpassed expectation and doubled its attendance rate from 80 people in 2007 to 160 in 2008. Guest speakers included the state-wide WRD representative Daniel Witthaus, Sergeant Joe Cahir from the Ballarat Family Violence Police division and family violence advocate Phil Cleary.


After the 2008 launch WRD was included within the City of Ballarat’s Community Safety Action Plan 2008-2013, we welcomed 4 new members to the committee and also published a comprehensive report about the 2008 campaign.


This is a clear result of the strength of the partners working on WRD and also the positive impact that the campaign is having on the local community. WRD is an exciting dynamic community project to be part of, which continues to go from strength to strength each year.

2008 WRD Report
July 2009 Newsletter
August 2009 Newsletter
September 2009 Newsletter
October 2009 Newsletter
November/December 2009 Newsletter
January 2010 Newsletter

Coming Clean about Chlamydia

Coming Clean about Chlamydia media awareness project was officially launched on the 11 July 2008. It was a successful multifaceted campaign aimed at young people and with the goal to increase their awareness of Chlamydia. The project included a radio ad, t-shirts, stickers and also a website. To check out the website go to www.chlamydia.net.au 
 

The Coming Clean about Chlamydia project was presented at the 2009 Australian Health Promotion Association Conference in Perth May 2009.


Chlamydia Case Study

Being Savvy in Cyber Space

During 2008 WHG became interested in the relationship between emerging technology and women’s health. While there are many benefits of technology issues continued to arise about cyber safety and cyber bullying and unknown effects of this type of violence. 


The Being Savvy in Cyber Space project is a joint initiative of Women’s Health Grampians in partnership with Ballarat High School and the University of Ballarat. It focuses on creating greater awareness amongst young women about the issues involved with using emerging technologies (internet, mobile phones) by developing a unique and engaging media health promotion package that will deliver a range of informative messages about safe usage to prevent or reduce their risk of being cyber bullied.


Cyber Bullying Case Study

site by sixtyone design