In October 2018, WWDA organised and hosted a one-day workshop with key decision makers from each of the six National Women’s Alliances and the four member organisations of Disabled People’s Organisations Australia (DPO Australia). The purpose of the workshop was to explore how the organisations could collaborate to strengthen representation and engagement of women with disability across the women’s sector.
In March 2016, KPMG was engaged by the Australian Government Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Office for Women, to conduct a review of the National Women’s Alliances (the Alliances) model. The review focused on assessing the coherence the model; strategies and outputs; alignment of the model with Australian Government priorities; and, whether the model was functioning as intended.
Key recommendations from the review were for the Alliances to (i) increase inter-alliance collaboration; (ii) increase the representation of marginalised populations, including women with disability, women from migrant and refugee backgrounds, and members of the LGBTI communities in the work of the Alliances. The report further recommended that engagement with marginalised groups should be embedded within the work of the Alliances, as opposed to reliance on cohort-specific organisations to represent the interests of these populations.
In order to support these recommendations, the Office for Women provided project funding to Women with Disabilities Australia (WWDA) to organise and host a one-day workshop with key decision makers from each of the six Alliances and the four member organisations of Disabled People’s Organisations Australia (DPO Australia). The purpose of the workshop was to explore how the organisations could collaborate to strengthen representation and engagement of women with disability across the women’s sector.
The workshop was held on 18 October 2018 in Sydney and was facilitated by Liz Forsyth from KPMG. The DPO Australia members and the six National Women’s Alliances were represented by their Chairpersons and CEOs, or other senior representatives as necessary. The below report details the the outputs and outcoms of this important workshop.