I’ve been thinking about WomxnConnect, our mission to be an uplifting respectful community of womxn. Knowing that the plight of womxn is worsening can make it difficult to feel that sense of uplift.
Yesterday I went to the funeral of Regan Mary Carr, whose profile was published in February last year. This incredible womxn spent forty years working to give voice to the voiceless while in the employ of the Queensland Police Service. Despite retirement at 60 to battle multiple brain tumours, Regan continued to mentor people and collaborate with academics at QUT. Her friends talked about her determination to stay alive, her drive to ensure that systems were changed so that the vulnerable did not end up being abused, traumatised or incarcerated.
Please take a moment to feel a sense of Regan’s backbone of steel and heart of gold.
Do you feel powerless to change the world?
Dr Mamphela Ramphele has had a celebrated career as an activist, medical doctor, academic, businesswoman and political thinker. I came to know about her work when I joined the Global Compassion Coalition. I would urge you to watch this empowering video where she shares her wisdom and challenges us to “free ourselves from the notion that systems are immutable…but do we have the determination to do so?”
What can we do right now?
On 21 February at the Brisbane Powerhouse at 6pm we can participate in a community conversation about womxn. Here’s the captivating blurb:
Women are more likely to live in poverty than men. Older women even more so.
Women earn less, own less, retire with less, are more likely to be homeless and do unpaid work as carers and volunteers than men. It is clear that caring can come at a cost. In Australia, in 2023, our panel of experts are asking how we can do better. What are the economic and social structures which have brought us here, and how can we work together to make a change?
I’m in, it would be brilliant to have a bunch of us gather and use this as a catalyst for action, an opportunity as a small group to, as Dr Mamphela Ramphele says, “embrace the responsibility of shaping our world to become a world where systems that generate suffering and poverty are systematically transformed”. Registration Link
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