Meet the finalists of the 2022 ACT Women’s Awards
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Each year, women from across the ACT are recognised for the contributions to improving lives of women and girls in the community through the ACT Women’s Awards.
We are excited to introduce you to the finalists of the 2022 awards, which will be presented tonight, 3 March, by Minster for Women, Yvette Berry.
Adjunct Professor Kylie Ward
Kylie is the Chief Executive of the Australian College of Nursing. She is an entrepreneur, businesswoman and registered nurse who has intensely led professional advocacy for nurses’ rights, safety, and health in the workplace.
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kylie wrote an Open Letter to nurses addressing the emotional toll they are facing.
This was followed by a comprehensive media campaign throughout Australia and resulted in a meeting directly with the Department Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to rectify the problem, as well as other key Health Ministers nationally.
Tendayi Ganga
Tendayi is the Founder of Born to Shine, an organisation focused on empowering women and girls. Through Born to Shine, she hosts women and family centred events to bring awareness to mental health, parenting and finances.
She is also the coordinator and broadcaster of the Zimbabwe Radio Program. The show broadcasts on the Canberra Multicultural Service Station every Wednesday and Tendayi has used the platform to share information about COVID-19 and share messages to build resilience.
Cara Ann Jacobs
Cara is the Director of Community Services at YWCA. She has helped secure financial relief for victims of the 2019-20 bushfires and people struggling financially due to the COVID-19 pandemic, delivering increased safe, quality, and affordable housing options to women and children, homeless older women and survivors of domestic and family violence.
During the pandemic, Cara has been an active advocate for maintaining essential services for women and in recognising and responding to the impact of the pandemic upon women in the ACT.
This has been particularly evident in Cara’s pivotal role in the establishment of the NGO Support Hub within ACT Health Ragusa Quarantine Facility.
Kelli-Ann Jackson
Kelli-Ann is the leader of the Women’s Adventure ACT, a volunteer-led and community-organised group that aims to keep the outdoors accessible, cheap, safe, and available to women and gender-diverse people of all backgrounds while boosting their knowledge, skills, safety-awareness, fitness, and personal confidence.
Kelli-Ann, one of the early members of the group, took on its leadership in 2018. Since then, she has dedicated herself full-time to this group. In just a few years, the group has grown to a significant and well-organised hub of nearly 4,000 members. It runs hundreds of events each year ranging from short walks at the National Arboretum, to bush foraging and weaving workshops led by local Indigenous educators, to week-long sea kayaking trips in Far North Queensland.
Carol Mead
A nurse by profession, Carol Mead has been a CEO of many Canberra community organisations, working with the most vulnerable citizens in the ACT. She has set up clinics in sexual health, a medical practice for people with drug and alcohol issues and recently an inclusive community garden space at Pearce Community Centre.
Carol is a passionate advocate for the rights of girls and women around the world to access health care, education, and adequate menstrual products.
Over the past 7 years, Carol coordinated Sew for a Girl Canberra and has worked with over 100 volunteers to provide assistance to girls, women, and their families in 18 countries. Currently Sew for a Girl Canberra supports girls and women in Pakistan, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka.
Lee-Anne Daley
Lee-Anne Daley is a proud Wiradjuri woman from Wellington, NSW. She is a passionate advocate for ensuring Aboriginal self-determination, views and values underpin service delivery to the local Aboriginal community.
Lee-Anne works with vulnerable families including facilitating the Strong Women’s Group and the Koori Girls group. The Strong Women’s Group provides women who are parents, carers, aunties or grandmothers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children an opportunity to come together to share cultural knowledge and engage with each other.
The Koori Girls group is a program for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander girls that aims to build links within the community and focuses on mentoring, healthy lifestyle choices, confidence building, positive role modelling, aspirations, creative arts and future pathways.
Shaylah McClymont
Shaylah has been long committed to supporting women and girls through her advocacy as a member of Girl Guides NSW, ACT and NT.
Shaylah has been a member of Girl Guides for 10 years and is currently the Deputy State Commissioner for Girl Guides NSW, ACT and NT, the second highest role in the organisation.
She is the youngest in NSW/ACT/NT to take on this role, one of the youngest in the Asia Pacific Region and the first from the ACT. Additionally, Shaylah is a representative for NSW, ACT and NT on the Girl Guides Australia Young Women’s Forum.
Shaylah has actively worked to promote and increase female representation in the Scouts ACT leadership team as one of the only young women in the Branch’s leadership.
Asha Clementi
At the age of 18, in 2017, Asha co-founded The Girls Leadership Network (TGLN), with her mother Ritu, creating a program that has directly empowered over 300 young women in both Canberra and Sydney.
Her TGLN spinoff, Girls Run the World, has made a strong impact in encouraging young women to join the field of defence and security. Asha also represented the National Council of Women Australia at the United Nations 62nd Commission on the Status of Women in 2018.
Camille Schoeffel
Camille is the Founder and Director of The STOP Campaign, a grassroots campaign started at the Australian National University to tackle sexual violence at Australian universities.
She was also the recipient of a 2021 YWCA Great Ydeas grant to develop The Safe Response Toolkit. The Safe Response Toolkit project provides information to victim-survivors of sexual violence and their supporters about how to safely respond to disclosures and access support services in Canberra.
It aims to reduce the stigmatisation of sexual violence and provide victim-survivors with the autonomy to access and navigate available support systems.
