Empowering women to thrive

AS a young woman in rural New Zealand, Shiree Pilkinton dreamed of becoming a journalist.

With on-air aspirations, she nervously walked into an audition for a radio course. This was the moment she experienced her first “bout of sexism.”

“I was the only female on the day. The man leading the auditions… made a comment. ‘Come on in, but you do realise the listening audience prefers a male voice’,” Ms Pilkinton said.

“I thought, this is what I’m up against already? I hadn’t even gone into do the audition tape.”

This experience lay at the back of her mind for years, prompting reflection.

“It made me aware of what others were experiencing, who may not have had the language or understanding of what is okay, and what’s not.

“It made me really passionate and aware to support others,” she said.

With a desire to see others thrive, Ms Pilkinton is one of the Zonta Club of Ballarat’s 2021 Great Women.

A qualified teacher, she has educated and nurtured people of all ages and varying cultures in England, Wales and Australia. For the last 20 years, her focus has been the arts, refugees and migrants.

Moving to Ballarat in 2007, she took on a French-speaking role, supporting West African refugee families as they settled in the community.

“I was curious… fascinated. Those families had been in camps for more than a decade. It raised my awareness of what was happening politically in the world.

“My own great-grandfather migrated to New Zealand from Yugoslavia by boat as a 16-year-old. Why were similar things still going on in the world?” Ms Pilkinton said.

With Māori, Croatian, and English heritage, she’s passionate about diversity and intercultural understanding.

A Centre for Multicultural Youth team leader, she offers opportunities for “dynamic” 12 to 25-year-old “changemakers” to skill-up.

At Women’s Health Grampians she established programs for diverse women who were “falling through the cracks;” isolated at home, lacking education or language, or experiencing family violence.

“The women I worked with were from 14 different cultures. They insisted on bringing food from their homelands,” Ms Pilkinton said.

Those meetings sparked intercultural cookbook, It Takes Courage, improving contributors’ literacy, numeracy, employability, and hospitality skills.

Then Ms Pilkinton’s “baby” arrived; social enterprise A Pot of Courage. Now a café and catering service employing multicultural Ballarat women, it’s their space to share knowledge, gain employment opportunities, the confidence to launch their own business, and thrive.

“I’ve learnt… to not over-help people. We want to assist and support someone’s development so it’s empowering, not creating a dependency,” she said.

“It’s about women taking control of their own lives. You can make a huge difference…by just giving them a go. That’s all it takes.”