The inaugural Dubbo Women’s Festival — International Women’s Day, Friday 8 March 2024, Western Plains Cultural Centre. Free, all day, built around the seasons of a woman’s life.

Who she is

I commenced work as Nurse Unit Manager of Tresillian Dubbo in 2018 after working at Dubbo community health as a child family health nurse for approximately 15 years. I am also a midwife. I enjoy working with mums and babies, running parent groups and helping mums get better daily patterns for their babies and toddlers. I help mums learn how to interact with their babies and toddlers for secure attachment and love answering questions they may have about mental health, child development or anything up to the age of 3 years.

The panel she sat on

Panel 1 — 10.30am. Pitched to younger women and moderated light-hearted, this one asked a question most new mothers are too polite to ask out loud: what is actually “normal”? Transitioning to motherhood. Early family life. Physical recovery and emotional load, treated as the same conversation rather than separate ones. Childcare ran downstairs so women could actually sit through it.

Marsha brought the longest view in the room to that question. A midwife and child and family health nurse of some fifteen years before she took over Tresillian Dubbo in 2018, her working life is spent with mums and babies — sleep patterns, secure attachment, child development, and the mental health questions parents carry but don’t always voice.

The day around the panels

The panels sat inside a free, all-day program built on one idea: make it as easy as possible for a woman to turn up. Free admission. Childcare. A dedicated space for mothers and children. Free lunch on the lawn. Transport for groups who’d otherwise not make it. An early breakfast session so women could come before work.

On the day, women had cervical screening and booked breast screening appointments. They sat in on panels about their own bodies. They took ten minutes in the Moment Lounge. They sang with Cam’s Choir. The festival was delivered by Sharon Quill, Joanne Phillips and Lorna Brennan, with more than forty partner organisations behind it.

The Women’s Festivals →  |  The first believers who backed it →