Joint winners announced for this year’s Monica Hayes Award

TWO outstanding Northern Bellarine women have been recognised for their contributions to the community, jointly receiving this year’s Monica Hayes Award.

The award was presented to Sarah Fenton and Denise Alaalatoa at this year’s International Women’s Day (IWD) lunch held at the Portarlington Golf Club on March 7.

Established in 2017, the Monica Hayes Award celebrates women in the community whose endeavours have made a difference to the wellbeing of others.

It is named in honour of the late Monica Hayes, a feminist, community leader and activist who died in 2016 from motor neurone disease.

Jenny Wills of the Northern Bellarine IWD committee said it was both the depth and scope of the contributions of the two recipients that stood out to the judges.

“The selection panel was unable to separate Denise Alaalatoa and Sarah Fenton who have each made a major contribution to the lives of women and girls on the Northern Bellarine through the Portarlington Football Netball Club and the swimming group, Salty Bitches, respectively,” she said.

“They’ve both supported – Sarah more recently – many, many women to become active and to form networks that benefit not only themselves, but also the wider community.”

“It’s great to see such fantastic work by our local women.”

Ms Fenton and Ms Alaalatoa were nominated for the award along with three other Northern Bellarine women: Franceska Dezelak, Christine Levvey and Sophie Small.

Ms Wills said it was a difficult task to select a winner as each of the nominees contribute daily to community life, actively encouraging and mentoring girls and women across the region.

“It’s very hard each year to make decisions about the recipients because it’s a recognition of women’s contributions to the community.

“We look forward to next year facing the same challenge.”

Ms Wills, who is involved with Women in Local Democracy (WiLD), also encouraged the region’s women to consider running in the upcoming City of Greater Geelong elections.

“We need women to stand as candidates as we move towards the target of genuine gender parity in local government,” she said.

“Women are really strong in community leadership so it’s taking that next step in terms of that civic and political leadership.

“What we have now is a restructuring of the wards in Geelong. We have 11 new wards, so we’d like to see the women standing in all those wards and we want to see that parity as an outcome.”