On Monday 8 March, Hamilton Locke and The Hunger Project hosted a panel discussion in celebration of International Women’s Day (IWD).
The theme for IWD 2021 was Choose To Challenge. We were honoured to have two female leaders speak to their personal and professional experiences exploring this theme in a panel discussion, moderated by Hamilton Locke partner, Nicholas Edwards.
CEO of The Hunger Project Australia, Melanie Noden, spoke about the global movement to empower women and the difficulties faced by developing communities during COVID-19, particularly Africa and India.
Founder of KYUP! Project, Mel Thomas, spoke about the importance of education in schools around domestic violence and the impact of working from home on women.
Key takeaways from the discussion included:
- Where there is a lack of equality, someone is vulnerable, whether to exploitation, violence or poverty, amongst other things.
- It is common in developing countries for the mother, women or girls to eat the least and eat last.
- A majority of companies in Australia do not have a domestic violence policy, but due to COVID-19 lockdowns there became a more urgent need for structural support of victims.
- There must be a multi-sectoral approach to gender equality, involving all schools, workplaces, organisations, women and men.
- Ultimately, there is hope due to the growing awareness and effort towards gender equality locally and globally.
You can lift up women this International Women’s Day by supporting organisations like The Hunger Project Australia and KYUP! Project.
To invest in The Hunger Project Australia’s work empowering and enabling women leaders to transform their communities, go to thp.org.au/give-now.
To support KYUP! Project, go to www.keyupproject.com.au.
