Changemaker’s work wins award

SHARING women’s success is Kimberley Furness’ passion, but last week she celebrated her own win taking home the Victorian AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award.

Ms Furness was recognised for her work with OAK Magazine, a quarterly publication she founded in 2017 filled with stories of regional and rural women making waves in the business world.

“I’ve got to interview these past finalists and winners and I’ve seen what an amazing group of connectors these women are,” she said.

“To be part of that alumni now and have that network is a bit of a game changer.”

As a former journalist, Ms Furness always wanted to create a magazine that changed the status quo of how women’s stories were told.

“There was this growing frustration with how our stories were being treated in the media and I think a big part, though, was I would stand in front of the magazines at a supermarket and I couldn’t see myself there. That is, a woman who runs a business in regional Australia who also has four kids,” she said.

“Another part of it was I was travelling around rural Victoria and New South Wales doing social media workshops. In these workshops these women would tell you about their business and the ‘why’ behind it.

“I’d come home and I’d be telling other people, sharing it on my social media and it came to a point where I thought ‘why are we condensing our stories into 2,000 characters or less with just one pretty picture? We need to see these in longform in a tangible product that we can hold and treasure’.”

From concept to first published product in six weeks, OAK Magazine has grown from 27 pages to more than 100 pages in just five years.

“I can still remember back to issue one, I had shown a guy and I was really excited. He was like ‘oh, aren’t you worried that you’ll run out of stories?’. He could not have been more wrong,” Ms Furness said.

“We share stories of women from all different backgrounds in all different industries right across Australia. That is what makes OAK unique.

“It comes back to that quote ‘you can’t be what you don’t see’. It was only recently that my daughter had questioned whether a female could be a firefighter.

“So, of course, in the next issue of OAK I found someone who was a volunteer firefighter.”

The award also came with a $15,000 grant Ms Furness said will be used to help launch an audio version of OAK Magazine for women who have a visual impairment, learning difficulty or low literacy.

As a state winner, she’ll go in the running for the national award which carries an additional $20,000 prize but, for now, her focus is on celebrating what she’s already achieved.

“I am really sitting in this moment, enjoying it, giving myself a pat on the back because it has been such a challenging two years,” she said.

“Through the stories in OAK, rural women in business can see what they can be. For me, it’s been a journey to understand that I can be myself and do business my way, that’s grounded in community and collaboration. My postcode is an opportunity.”