Community leader driven by desire to create change

WOMEN’S Health Grampians CEO Marianne Hendron said she strives to amplify the voices of marginalised women, and empower them.

“What I have endeavoured to do in this job and other jobs is to be very strongly focused on equity,” she said.

“By that I mean not taking the view that we are equal and therefore should all be able to take advantage of what’s out there, but to recognise the significant barriers that a lot of women face.”

Growing up during The Troubles conflict in Ireland, Ms Hendron said she was driven to create change.

“I guess that gave me a strong sense of what civil rights was about, and I was quite young at that time but very aware of the movement around civil rights in Ireland and the risks that people took in terms of trying to highlight the big inequities,” she said.

“It gave me a sense of not taking anything for granted and how important it is to speak up.

“When I went to university in Dublin there was no access to contraception, there was no divorce, there was no access to abortion.”

Ms Hendron came to Australia in 1992 and lived in the Wimmera where she saw the disadvantages rural women faced.

“We were in a fairly rural community, childcare was very difficult to access, and I was keen to contribute to the workforce,” she said.

“I got an insight into the variations across this state and the country more broadly.”

Ms Hendron became the CEO of Women’s Health Grampians in 2015 and has engaged leaders in local government, health, sport and business sectors to form a collective approach to the prevention of family and gendered violence through the Grampians Communities of Respect and Equality (CoRE) Alliance.

“I’ve been extremely fortunate to work with an amazing team so what has taken place has been very much a team effort,” she said.

“We launched the CoRE Alliance back in 2016. I think the model was a good one and I also think it was timely because the issue of family violence was quite top-of-mind for a lot of people.

“I also think it’s a reflection of our community that so many people wanted to come on board with that.”

After three high-profile cases of violence against women in the Ballarat community last year, Ms Hendron said the implementation of the State Government’s saturation model is an important opportunity for change.

“There is a huge opportunity for us as a community to change the dial with regard to gendered violence,” she said.

“There arose from that a determination to say this isn’t who we are, this isn’t the community we want to be or have a reputation for.”

For her service to the community, Ms Hendron will be inducted onto Ballarat’s Great Women Honour Roll by members of the Zonta Club of Ballarat next month.

If you or someone you know is dealing with issues resulting from sexual or physical abuse, help is available from CASA on 1800 806 292 or casacv.org.au, Lifeline on 13 11 14 or lifeline.org.au, and 1800 Respect on 1800 737 732.