As we come to the end of 2024, WHGNE is proud to look back at all we have achieved this year across our region. Our partners and stakeholders have worked extremely hard with the WHGNE team to continue our journey to a safe and equitable world for all. Read on to learn about all we
have achieved together this past 12 months.
This year, we completed our Long Story Short project in partnership with Women’s Health Loddon Mallee. Over two years we collected stories from women across our region about their experiences and struggles surrounding sexual and reproductive health. In March, we launched the Amplifying Women’s Voices video series, including five videos inspired by Long Story Short, which featured actors telling real world stories about people in our region. These powerful videos resonated strongly with many and showed the real struggles women face daily in seeking sexual and reproductive health.
In September, we released ‘Long Story Short: Reshaping the Narrative of Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health’. This report detailed our recommendations on how leaders and decision-makers can improve the sexual and reproductive health of rural and regional women. This report is guided by real women’s voices. You can read the full report here.
In May we proudly partnered with our friends at Australia Remade to create a research project about how we can care for each other before, during and after disasters. Care Through Disaster explores how we can better set ourselves up to care and be cared for during times of deep disruption. Based on extensive research, Care through Disaster acts as a guide and practical toolkit as to what we can do to build a new infrastructure of care and set up communities to thrive. We are thrilled to extend this work in 2025 with the launch of the Care through Disaster Community of Practice.
You can explore Care through Disaster and find information about the new Community of Practice here.
In June we marked World Localisation Day by releasing “Local food, local people: Nourishing our community”, an online magazine featuring stories from people across the Goulburn Valley and north eastern Victoria. It is made up of
real stories about people working to ensure everyone in our community has access to fresh produce, community connection and food to nourish the soul. The digital magazine compliments and reflects our work within the food systems space – this year, we’ve been working with communities and partners in Goulburn North East to contribute to building local food strategies that will foster equitable, sustainable, affordable food systems that provide nutritious food available to everyone. We have advocated for this work to be better supported through a submission to the Inquiry into Food Security in Victoria. You can read about our local food systems work, including the magazine here.
In August, to mark the beginning of National Homelessness Week, we launched our report “Housing is a Human Right”. Our report outlined recommendations for systemic change to address the current state of housing. The majority of people experiencing homelessness are 
in insecure, unsafe or temporary housing, and women disproportionately experience homelessness due to gender-based violence, wealth disparity and discrimination. You can read our full report here.
In October we were excited to take part in two days of Size Inclusive Seminars with Gateway Health. These were eye opening and informative days for all who attended. Evidence shows that behaviour doesn’t necessarily determine a person’s body weight and body weight doesn’t always reflect health. Yet, many believe weight loss is key to better health and disease prevention and that higher body weight equates to poorer health. We were proud to challenge this stigma and help people learn about the importance of size inclusivity, especially in health. You can read more about size inclusive practice here.
November saw WHGNE launch our inaugural Reflect Reconciliation Action Plan to staff, friends and stakeholders. The theme of ‘reflect’ compliments our organisational values and underpins the importance of acknowledging the
central role of First Nations leadership, participation and knowledge in the process of Reconciliation. Our newly launched RAP will serve as a guide and key framework for integrating First Nations perspectives throughout our organisation. You can explore our RAP here, with beautiful artwork by local artist, Tamara May Murray.
This year’s 16 Days of Activism theme was ‘How to turn awareness into action’, because we, like people across our region, want to take practical steps to stop gender-based violence from happening in the first place. We released a new course on the Gender Equity E-LEARNING HUB for Human Rights Day along with a plethora of other courses released in 2024. You can explore the full catalogue at the Gender Equity E-LEARNING HUB. You can check out all of the 16 Days campaign resources with practical tips on acting to prevent gender-based violence through action towards gender equality here.
Over two years WHGNE undertook a course in ‘systems change’, an approach to our health promotion, advocacy and primary prevention work that centres the importance of 
incremental, interconnected collective actions to shift the systems through which we work to better serve the needs of all people living and working in our region.
Through this process we began to develop a Gender Justice Theory of Change – a document that will act as a guide in achieving the type of systemic change that we hope will lead to the optimal health and wellbeing of women across our region – a fundamental driver of our work, which we will be implementing in 2025.