The YWCA Great Ydeas Small Grants Program is back again this year, with seven innovation grants awarded to local women for projects that empower the community.
YWCA Canberra CEO Frances Crimmins says the innovation ideas of Canberra women are diverse, ground-breaking and, when supported, have an incredible long-term impact on improving the community.
Grants of up to $2,000 are awarded to local women, including female identifying and non-binary people and girls, in the categories of small business, community development, the arts, diversity and inclusion, social enterprise, and professional development. This year’s program saw a pool of $14,000 in funding through the support of businesses and philanthropic partnerships.
Kate Crowhurst received the Mentoring/Idea to Impact Workshop Series grant for her The Money Bites financial literacy podcast and blog, aiming to normalise conversations about money for women; The Creativity grant went to Canberra musician Vendulka Witcha to collaborate on a single to be released on all platforms; and Jennifer Robertson was awarded the STEAM grant for her and PhD student Wei Wei Hou’s research to produce a device to help stroke patients with speech deficits.
Additionally, four grants were available for women of all ages to help fund a start-up, new project or professional development, with the following grants awarded: Saba Awan for On the Ground, a website that aims to recognise local women of colour working in various fields and provide the community with a direct way to contact them; Rosalind Moran for Living Letters, a series of guided workshops to increase engagement with literature throughout the Canberra community; Katherine Guerin-Smith for the Sexy Health Social Hour, an event for lesbian, bisexual and queer people, including transgender, non-binary and gender diverse people, providing inclusive sexual health information; and Sophie Holloway for How You Bin, a campaign promoting sustainability in the Bungendore community.
“It’s wonderful to see the growth of the Great Ydeas program over the decade, and the important impact this program has made on Canberra women and our broader community,” Ms Crimmins says.
“Our past recipients have gone on to achieve amazing things. One of our 2015 recipients, Caterina Giorgi, used her grant to create For Purpose, which works with not-for-profit and purposeful organisations to build their strategic, advocacy and communication capacity. For Purpose is a forerunner in the community working every day to tackle some of Australia’s biggest social, health and environmental problems.”
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