International Women’s Day is a great day to acknowledge the history of neighbourhood houses - which came about in the 70s and early 80s as a result of women getting together to help each other out - particularly when it became acceptable to return work after having children, but there was limited practical infrastructure in place to support and enable this to happen. Occasional care/crèche and babysitting clubs featured heavily in the first iteration of many houses … ACC for example had a babysitting club - with special tokens that acknowledged how many hours you had done. We still have them stored away in our archives!

It’s also a great day to acknowledge some of the wonderful women who work and volunteer and join in here, and support us - making our centre what it is today.

These photos are from the last year … women like Anne volunteering in the garden, Louisa sharing her amazing art skills in our community, Elaine, Manu and Monica making preserves to help us fundraise, Lee undertaking fabulous community art projects that we all enjoy, Annie and Silvana supporting Kinfolk and joining in our community market, Maylei teaching women new skills in the shed, the women in our shed, our politicians, our sponsors like Lee from the Community Bank on Queens Parade, lovely Maria across the road (and Betty - I don’t have a photo of Betty), Anne yarnbombing, Sharyn and Virginia hanging art for our recent exhibition, our morning tea participants, our playgroup facilitators Maimi, Sue and Gianna and the playgroup families - mostly mums. Shirley and the line dancers (sorry I didn’t include a photo) and the families that joined in our grow local, cook local workshops. And our staff including Kalimna, Jill and Suzanne. Also our committee including Heather, Anne, Michelle, Kate and Jane. And then there’s also the broader neighbourhood house network …

It is a truly fabulous experience working in partnership with so many wonderful, dynamic women every single day.

So hooray for women I say!! And happy International Women’s Day. Our house certainly wouldn’t be the same without you.