A Woman's Touch Inspirational Woman Award
Cassandra Treadwell - So They Can |
Fowler Homes Entrepreneurial Woman Award
Pauline Blomfield -K9 Medical Detection |
Ray White Community Recognition Award
Rebecca Sarginson - Food for Love Wanaka |
The Mountain Scene Resilience Award
Juanita Willems - Foster Hope Otago |
Meet our finalists for the Inspirational Women Awards 2022. These are all women who are bringing about positive change and making the future of our community brighter.
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These woman are inspiring the community and bringing about positive change.
They show commitment, courage, and confidence and are the role models and change makers in the community.
Meet our finalists for the Inspirational Women Award.
They show commitment, courage, and confidence and are the role models and change makers in the community.
Meet our finalists for the Inspirational Women Award.
Cassandra Treadwell
Cassandra is the founder of So They Can, an international not-for-profit organisation focused on educating children living in East Africa so they can go on to break the cycle of poverty. So They Can currently partners with 47 schools in three communities in Kenya and Tanzania. The organisation runs a number of Education and Enhancement Programs that deliver holistic support to children and their families living in poverty, including; a Women and Girls' Empowerment Program that exists to prevent gender-based violence including female genital cutting, child marriage and early pregnancy; a Community Health and Development Program that supports 7 rural clinics; and a Child Wellbeing Program that provides safety and support to 206 children. In 2012, So They Can founded the Mamire Teachers' Training College to address the critical teacher shortage — since then the college has ranked #1 in performance across all 79 public and private teachers’ colleges in Tanzania. Cassandra and So They Can have a list of achievements, including raising over $22 million to fund their vital work that has delivered quality education to over 30,000 students since 2010. So They Can is one of only 53 international NGOs in Australia awarded accreditation by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). |
Debbie Swain-Rewi
Debbie is the director of Engage Safety, an occupational health, and well-being business. When Covid-19 struck Debbie ended up running, arguably, the resort’s largest vaccination clinic. She ran the drive-through clinic at the Events Centre and has run mobile clinics in Queenstown, Glenorchy, Kingston, Hawea, and Wanaka. She estimates they’ve so far administered 10,000 jabs, many to Maori who mightn’t have gone anywhere else. She also started a food parcel service, health support services, and has brought mental health awareness programmes to Queenstown. She has given opportunities to many people from all different cultures a chance to change their career paths into the Hauora health space. The staff have engaged in many training opportunities while working at Engage Safety and this has become a positive impact on all her staff. She is known for uniting the Māori community and has provided a Korowai at Engage Safety as a Whānau hub and invites everyone to come in and have a cuppa tea and korero with her and the Staff. She has worked with the rural community of Glenorchy for seven years. Providing a non-funded weekly health clinic for the community. |
Olivia Wensley
Olivia is one of New Zealand's loudest voices for female empowerment was just just listed in New Zealand's top 50 power lawyers. She is passionate activist for Women's Rights and has been credited with being a catalyst of the #MeToo movement in New Zealand which resulted in the reform of Lawyer’s Conduct Rules to better protect practitioners against sexual assault and harassment. Whilst CEO of Startup Queenstown-Lakes Olivia and her team have campaigned for diversifying the QT-Lakes economy after being severely affected by Covid - and has focused on supporting and attracting new startups. She is passionate about empowering women entrepreneurs and has been focused on raising the region's female-led startup quota. In 2020 Tech startup founders in the QT-Lakes startup ecosystem were 100% male. In the past 24 months, Olivia has focused on "tipping the scales" and driven the participation of women in founder programs to 55-75% - which reflects the highest female participant in an ecosystem in the whole country. In November 2021, Olivia helped a 22-year-old woman who was born in the Gloriavale cult to escape (after 6 years of undercover work visiting the commune). Olivia and her family housed and assisted the woman and her mother to safely integrate into society. |
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These women question the status quo, seek growth, and embrace both challenges and opportunities.
They are the owner or director of their own company or charitable trust in the Otago community.
These woman have faced the ups and downs that come with entrepreneurship and their businesses are advocating positive change.
Meet our finalists for the Entrepreneurial Women Award.
They are the owner or director of their own company or charitable trust in the Otago community.
These woman have faced the ups and downs that come with entrepreneurship and their businesses are advocating positive change.
Meet our finalists for the Entrepreneurial Women Award.
Lisa Leftley
Lisa established the Pivotal Point Charitable Trust in 2021. This is a charitable trust working within the Whakatipu Basin to help neurodiverse tamariki. She presented Pivotal Point to the Queenstown Rotary in March 2021 and at the time, she had no trustees. Since then, she has built a board of 7 trustees and become a registered charity. She has established an Educational Advisory Board to support the charity’s projects and is running an active navigation service. She has managed to win the Impact100 Wakatipu's top award enabling the charity to offer neurodiversity screening and professional development programmes to local schools. |
Pauline Blomfield
Knowing that New Zealand has one of the highest rates of cancer in the world and with her understanding of the incredible sensory abilities of canines, Pauline created K9 Medical Detection NZ Charitable Trust with her own funding. Pauline’s belief that the use of dogs as a diagnostic tool is highly undervalued. Her mission is to create a simple diagnostic urine test as a value-added tool in the fight against cancer. To support the health system by prioritising patients, allowing for earlier treatment and providing an opportunity for better outcomes. Pauline has brought together a full specialist clinical support team. Her passion and determination to give all New Zealanders an opportunity for early cancer detection has seen her raise funds to develop New Zealand’s only canine medical detection training centre, to design and create unique canine medical scent detection equipment, and source funding to employ a team of experienced personnel. Recent success from her team has proven what Pauline always knew, that specifically trained dogs can work to a high level of proficiency offering a reliable and credible medical alternative diagnostic opportunity. Within the last few months Pauline has succeeded in gaining significant approval from both medical governing bodies and medical specialists throughout New Zealand to begin stage two of the 'Diagnostic Test Accuracy' using patient urine samples. This is an exciting development in her internationally recognised work. Pauline is also the winner of the prestigious Otago Hall of Fame Innovation award. |
Victoria Keating
Victoria is the co-owner and director of boutique travel agency xtravel When Covid struck she and her team spearheaded a pivot turning the travel agency into a repatriation one, helping over 2000 people make it back safely to their respective homes. Through her company, xtravel she has: Chartered 2 x Dreamliners between 2 continents at great personal financial risk to bring Australians and Kiwis home from South America during the pandemic. Has chartered 13 flights home from Santiago to continue repatriating overseas kiwis home, working with foreign commissions and immigration teams to tackle closed borders and visa issues. Advised the NZ and Australian governments on possible routes home for citizens to and from South America Volunteered over 730 hours at the Kia Kaha Community Hub advising and assisting over 1200 of Queenstown’s local migrant work force. Collected over 2000 bras for women in the South Pacific through the Uplift Project. |
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These women give back to their community without asking for anything in return. They are the unsung heroes who deserve recognition.
These women are taking initiative and helping others through community projects. These women are making our community a better place to live.
Meet our finalists for the Community Recognition Award.
These women are taking initiative and helping others through community projects. These women are making our community a better place to live.
Meet our finalists for the Community Recognition Award.
Hana Halalele
"O le ala i le pule o le tautua - the path to leadership is through service" Hana is a proud New Zealand born Samoan and was the first Pasifika Elected Member for Waitaki District Council. She is a proud wife and mother of two teenage girls, a Registered Social Worker, and General Manager for the Oamaru Pacific Island Community Group Inc (OPICG Inc). Through her leadership and in the last two years, she has helped to transform the 30 year old OPICG Inc organisation from a voluntary grassroots community group supporting Pacific families to an organisation that holds its original objectives as well as delivering a full range of social service support for the community in Waitaki. OPICG Inc are passionate about leading the changes in the community and growing local capability for people to thrive and lead prosperous lives. She advocates for many people, including Youth Council and the LGBTQIA+ community in council decisions. In 2021, she and her team at OPICG Inc led the Covid-19 vaccination outreach programme. They reached 98% first dose vaccination for Pasifika in Oamaru in December. Presently, OPICG Inc are one of the lead organisations supporting the Waitaki community in the Covid-19 Care in the Community Welfare support space. She contributes her success as "not her's alone, but that of the collective". |
Luana Karina De Aguiar Goncalves
Luana is the founder of Brasileiros Em Queenstown and has been an advocate for the Queenstown Brazilian community for the last 12-years. The list of Luana’s efforts has been extensive including creating the group “Brasileiros em Queenstown” on Facebook, to be a way of communication and mutual help among Brazilians who live in Queenstown (now at 11,910 members). When the pandemic struck she started and participated in several projects to help Queenstown community, especially the migrant’ communities, expanding her work to the wider migrant community as well as the Brazilian community. She worked to organise a bus to Christchurch for a repatriation to Brazil, for almost 2 months she fought for a second Brazilian repatriation flight. When this flight didn’t happen she helped the Brazilian community with basic needs. She organised the Mental Health Event project for Brazilians, it was held at the Event Centre and lasted 3 days. |
Bex Sarginson
Bex is the Co-Founder of Wanaka’s Charitable Trust Food For Love. She believes that it’s through food we can support each other with love, especially when we need it most. For six years Bex led, inspired, and worked a team of loyal volunteers and caring people, and Food for Love now supports many Wanaka Organisations in helping their clients with its service. They work closely with the Schools in Upper Clutha and as of 2020, have been able to supply school lunches daily to those who are not bringing them along. They also make weekly meals for a group of 30 elderly folk in the community living alone. For whatever reason, if nominated by a neighbour or friend nobody is ever turned away. From a few neighborhood meals to 4,600 meals to date in a year, Food For Love is a significant undertaking. Food For Love currently has 186 volunteers who weekly provide home and bulk cooked nutritious meals, and they, in turn, have been provided with family meals when it was most needed. Food For Love has its own storage facility, freezers, and chillers for produce donated by farmers, businesses, and locals. Bex is proud that these donors offer in the same spirit as the volunteers give. Bex is a woman of vision. She’s an inspiration and a tireless contributor to what Food For Love stands for. |
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These women have experienced things you’d think would break them, and still they stand strong.
They still shows kindness, even when the world hasn’t always been kind to Them.
These are woman who have carried on in the face of unfortunate circumstances, their drive and determination is inspirational.
Meet our finalists for the Resilience Award.
They still shows kindness, even when the world hasn’t always been kind to Them.
These are woman who have carried on in the face of unfortunate circumstances, their drive and determination is inspirational.
Meet our finalists for the Resilience Award.
Juanita Willems
Juanita is blind as a result of being a child abuse survivor, she was badly beaten at 10 months old, and suffered significant injuries. This has resulted in her losing her sight over the past 5 years. She is the coordinator for Foster Hope Otago which is a 100% volunteer-based charity that provides backpacks filled with essential items to children as they enter into the foster care system. In 2021 they provided 1400 foster children with packs and over 1000 Christmas presents. The charity has been operating for 10 years but during the past 5 years, Juanita has continued to run the charity while undergoing a series of over 34 operations/procedures to try and save her vision, she has learned to read and write braille, and learned adaptive technology to enable her to continue to use her computer. |
Mel Haarer Mel started CONNECT AND CARE in 2018 as a result of 18 months of voluntary work in the community looking at ways to reduce isolation and vulnerability for others. She was inspired to do so after living through 7 years of traumatic events and complicated grief. She consequently designed and piloted a wellbeing program through an advocacy model "empowering people to lead their healthiest, happiest lives”. She has delivered over 100 workshops helping 100’s of people. In spring 2021, Mel secured sponsorship to provide wellbeing support for businesses and their teams in the Southern Lakes region suffering the impacts of Covid. This followed on from a first round of programming spring 2020 providing the Arrowtown community with wellbeing support in response to Covid. Mel prepared a WHITE PAPER sharing the findings and impact achieved from this work for people to read - accessible through her website. Mel is proud to be a registered wellbeing provider for Regional Business Partners tourism recovery. Businesses in the Otago region can access government funding to support their individual and team wellbeing through these hugely challenging and stressful pandemic times. She strongly encourages people to utilise this free support. She recently started running the STARS youth development program at Wakatipu High School and is a program facilitator for the new HEAD LIGHT TRUST - local mental health charity. |
Tanya Bottomley
Tanya was in an abusive relationship for 10-years and as a result, she developed PTSD. For the last three years, she has been sharing her story of domestic abuse through her sporting challenges and her social media platforms with the goal of helping reduce the shame and stigma around domestic violence and to be a voice for other women who can't speak up. She has been on a number of podcasts talking about domestic violence and last year she had a film made about her story and recovery which was has been aired in cinemas around the world (and also in Wanaka and QT). That film has just been purchased by a European TV company to be aired on TV internationally. She has just launched WildHer offering empowerment and coaching adventures for women. The charitable side will initially start with a small group of women who have experienced trauma going through a 12-month transformation coaching and adventure journey. |
Olivia Egerton
Olivia Egerton has masterfully guided the complex construction of Te Atamira - a community art centre in Frankton, and a facility that the Whakatipu community has been waiting patiently for more than two decades.
Sarah Millwater
In 2017, Sarah founded Hawea Youth Club (which she handed over to Kahu Youth in 2020) so that the youth could have somewhere to meet on a Friday night. She spent her time at the club every Friday night of every term for three years. Sarah’s current plans involve setting up a youth-to-work scheme, helping manage worker shortages in town as well as giving options to students who don’t quite fit the school model.
Janice Jones
Janice volunteers for the Central Otago Pony Club and Equestrian Sports, and has offered her time up as secretary for the past 14-years. She organises equestrian events and camps for the pony-loving children of the region.
Ira Mitchell
Queenstown-born artist, Ira Mitchell now works between Christchurch, Australia, and the USA. Ira gives back to the community by way of monetary donations through sales of art and volunteering for the community programs, to a minimum value of $10k per year.
Olivia Egerton has masterfully guided the complex construction of Te Atamira - a community art centre in Frankton, and a facility that the Whakatipu community has been waiting patiently for more than two decades.
Sarah Millwater
In 2017, Sarah founded Hawea Youth Club (which she handed over to Kahu Youth in 2020) so that the youth could have somewhere to meet on a Friday night. She spent her time at the club every Friday night of every term for three years. Sarah’s current plans involve setting up a youth-to-work scheme, helping manage worker shortages in town as well as giving options to students who don’t quite fit the school model.
Janice Jones
Janice volunteers for the Central Otago Pony Club and Equestrian Sports, and has offered her time up as secretary for the past 14-years. She organises equestrian events and camps for the pony-loving children of the region.
Ira Mitchell
Queenstown-born artist, Ira Mitchell now works between Christchurch, Australia, and the USA. Ira gives back to the community by way of monetary donations through sales of art and volunteering for the community programs, to a minimum value of $10k per year.
