Introduce yourself! Who are you and what inspired you to volunteer with WAGEC?
I am originally from Belgium and came to Australia over three years ago. I have been highly involved in women rights for the past few years, launching a project called "what is a woman" in 2016 and travelling across Eurasia to interview women. While doing this project, I realised how wide spread domestic violence was and I found it very disturbing. When I heard during the lockdown that the domestic violence rate was going up, I directly applied to become a volunteer at WAGEC and to try to help where I can!
Do you have any highlights of volunteering with WAGEC? If so, what are they?
It's been amazing to chat with the team and see how passionate everyone was about the cause. It confirmed, even more, my want to help out the organisation.
What is the typical day in the life of a volunteer?
I am a data analyst, so I typically focus on understanding what analysis needs to be made, how I can make it and how we can share it. My volunteering hours are split between conversations, extracting data and exploring them in Tableau at the moment.
What does community mean to you?
It means connection. It is something beyond family, yet as supportive as one. Community is where we can become stronger, healthier and happier with others.
What is something you are grateful for or something not many people know about you (e.g. fun fact)?
I am super grateful to be a woman! When I was younger, I struggled embracing being a woman, since it didn't seem like this patriarchal society would give the equality I had been raised with. Today, I am actually proud and confident as a woman, I am excited about the progress we can make all together.
