Conference Speakers

Jessie has been a Rotarian for the past seventeen years, a member of the Rotary Club of Wendouree Breakfast in District 9780, Australia.

She has been active at club, district and international levels.  Jessie is a past club secretary and president, and was District  Governor in 2010-2011.  More recently she has served as Rotary Co-ordinator (2013-2016) and project lead for the Regional Membership Plan for Zones 7B & 8 (2013-2017).  She has been a member of the national training team and training leader at Rotary’s International Assembly in San Diego.  She is presently the seminar trainer for International Assembly.

Jessie’s first experience of Rotary was as a participant of RYLA in 1987, and she maintains an active interest in Rotary’s youth and leadership programs to this day.  She is also keenly interested in membership development, and is co-author of ‘101 strategies for recruiting and retaining members’.  Continuing her interest, Jessie was recently appointed to Rotary International’s Membership Committee – a standing committee of the Board of Rotary International.

In her working life, Jessie is Pro Vice-Chancellor (International and Partnerships) at Federation University Australia.  She is married to Andrew, also a Rotarian, and mother to Claire, Georgia and James.

 

Above all Tim really enjoys working with Rotarians to make a difference in our local communities and worldwide, especially when we can have bit of fun too.

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Isobel Marshall
2021 SA Young Australian of the Year

At 17 and 18 years old, Eloise Hall and Isobel Marshall Co-Founded the South Australian based social enterprise TABOO.

In 2017, Eloise and Isobel crowd-funded $56,000 to launch their range of high quality, ethically sourced, organic cotton pads and tampons. They sell to the Australian market with 100% of net profits donated to Charity partner OneGirl, and all business activities dedicated to eradicating period poverty and challenging menstrual stigma locally and abroad. TABOO has partnered with many Australian organisations, providing free access to pads for Australian women who require menstrual support.  

The TABOO team is made up of 10 young women from SA and VIC. They have a strong focus on the education of Australian students through schools and campaigns, aiming to change the conversation around periods and increase the understanding and respect of menstruation across all demographics and genders. 

Eloise works as Managing Director of TABOO and studies Business and International Studies at Flinders University. Isobel is working as Director of Health and Education at TABOO and is studying Medicine at the University of Adelaide.

 

Author of the Toilet Warrior

During a business trip to India, the author made an unexpected discovery, a discovery that was to turn his understanding of our world upside down. He was so shaken by what he learned that he felt unable to simply walk away.

​More often than not, when people are confronted by a major issue with global implications you will hear them say "What can I do? I'm only one person." Mark decided that such a response would be unacceptable and he made up his mind to get involved.

For over three decades, Kay has shown a long-standing commitment to the Defence and Veteran community, as a former President of the Army Families (WA) Committee, the 1^st Commando Regiment Auxiliary, and as a board member of varying other prominent Defence and Veteran organisations. During that time, Kay helped establish numerous Defence and Veteran Community initiatives. Among these, her more personal experiences of surviving torture when Kay and her husband Kerry, a SAS Veteran, were held hostage for 321 days in a secret political prison. Her resilience from this ordeal led to an ongoing engagement with the Defence Intelligence Training Centre, which resulted in developing an in-house training program, “Hostage—Survive with Dignity.” This became a mandatory module for ADF personnel deploying on operations. 

Kay is an Ambassador for Bolt4MentalTrauma and uses her personal insights on suicide risk and self-harm to promote Defence and Veteran wellbeing. She is extremely committed to working with Government, Defence and other agencies and contributes to discussions on policy reforms in key areas impacting society, especially Defence and Veteran suicide prevention.

 

Dr Melanie Bagg is the Chief Executive Officer of the National Youth Science Forum and adores all aspects of science, especially in engaging others with it. Melanie has a BSc, a BHSc (Hons) and a PhD in Medicine from the University of Adelaide. One of the highlights of her academic career before pursuing was winning a scholarship to live and study her PhD at the University of Milan, Italy. Since her research days, Melanie has gained more than 15 years experience in STEM management, science communication, outreach, fundraising, publishing and media for the not-for-profit and higher education sectors. She is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors Course amongst a range of other management and business qualifications and courses. In 2016 Melanie was awarded the Unsung Hero of SA Science Communication for her science media work on ABC Adelaide that showed a commitment to translating complex science into something for everyone. In 2018, Melanie moved to Canberra to take up the role of Director of Communications at the Australian Academy of Science. At the Academy, Melanie led her communications and outreach team to unprecedented online science publishing success and they were awarded the Public Relations Institute of Australia’s (PRIA) Golden Target Award for Not-for-Profit In-House Team of the Year both in ACT and Nationally. In her spare time, Melanie enjoys all types of skiing, roller-skating and learning new musical instruments with her husband and two young daughters.

Michael Sawyer, OAM, MBBS, PhD, Dip Child Psych., FRANZCP, FRCPC is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Adelaide.

 

Prior to retiring in 2019 he was Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Adelaide and Head, Research and Evaluation Unit at the Women's and Children's Hospital in South Australia. During his academic career he also held appointments as Head, Department of Paediatrics and Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Adelaide.

 

Michael is currently the Honorary Medical Advisor for Australian Rotary Health. In 2008, he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for services to the field of child and adolescent mental health as a researcher and educator.

Brad is the Executive Director of White Ribbon Australia.

 

In 2011, Brad founded the “Welcoming Australia” movement, now a national organisation with staff in four states, a range of initiatives across Australia and a national network of local government associations implementing the Welcoming Cities framework for building communities where everyone is welcome to belong, contribute and thrive. Brad is the Chair of the Welcoming Australia Advisory Panel and a Board director.

Brad founded and convened the Family and Domestic Violence Advocacy Network in South Australia, created the annual Adelaide White Ribbon March, is on the Board of Reconciliation SA and the Advisory Board Food for Education (Kenya) and was named in South Australia’s 100 Most Influential People in 2018.

He has also worked as the Interim CEO of Australians for Mental Health and as advisor to Tim Costello and the Campaign for Australian Aid, leading the “Elite Influencers” strategy.

Brad was the founder and Lead Pastor of a progressive and inclusive Christian community in Adelaide called Activate Church and was on the national steering committee of Christians for Marriage Equality.

In addition to these advocacy roles, Brad has worked as a Ministerial Adviser at both the State and Federal levels and coordinates Australian support for a school for stateless children and a kinship foster program for Khmer children in Cambodia. Brad writes regularly for The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/profile/brad-chilcott

 

Gabrielle is the founding Director of SAHMRI’s Wellbeing and Resilience Centre 2014-19 and former Director SAHMRI Health and Wellbeing program until 2019.

Gabrielle has worked on human behaviour and systems change  in support of a better society as:
 

an international film-maker, producing award-winning films on climate change for the BBC and UN,

a tech innovator, developing a wellbeing measurement platform

as a social entrepreneur and strategist.

She is a member of the UAE World Government Summit’s committee, investigating Wellbeing as an enabler of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. 

 

Sarah Brooker was involved in a serious car accident in 2002. She woke up with no memory of the first 20 years of her life and has spent the past 18 years recovering.  Along the way she has achieved a First Class Honours and PhD in Behavioural Neuroscience; a Post Graduate Diploma in Counselling; and then another in Education.  She has been a scientist, a radio host, a counsellor, and is currently a Relief Teacher in the Adelaide Hills.  She released a book about her accident and recovery earlier this year, called My Lucky Stroke.

 

November 7th, 2003, Anthony on anti-depressants, sleep deprived, and suffering depression made a significant attempt on his life. Through a remarkable stroke of luck, he clung onto life and survived.

Anthony shares insights into the mind of someone struggling mentally, and paints a picture of the thoughts, feelings and behaviour of someone who battles poor ‘Mind Health’. Through his arduous recovery journey back, Anthony uncovered four powerful yet simple steps to better mind health, with collaboration with SAHMRI he turned it into a free app – Lifeback Tracker was born.

Fast forward to today, the business he leads, Invigor Wellbeing has through his learnings, created a simple, yet powerful Mind Health Annual Program designed to unite Employers with Employees by building a ‘Culture of Care’ throughout the organisation. The program has the potential to significantly improve the mind and physical wellbeing of participants. The mutual benefits are enormous.

It is Anthony’s mission in life that by sharing his story, that others won’t have to go down the same path he did. In 2018 his attraction to the clear messaging around R u OK saw him become a Brand Ambassador.

The takeaway learnings attendees with leave with will be lifelong

 

John is now delivering the presention scheduled for Peter Davies.

These notes relate to Peter's involvement with Paul Otto.

I met Paul Otto in Cambodia in 2011 when he was managing the construction of a 4 hectare village and clinic for HIV children in the rural village of Smach Deng, near the coastal port of Sihanoukville. I was a Director for the NGO responsible for its construction.

While working in the village Paul became acquainted with the locals and discovered a significant number of children in the region were not attending school regularly – and many not at all.  We know that education and lifelong learning are important tools for breaking the cycle of exclusion, poverty, domestic violence and family breakdown. Without education a child can become an “at risk” street kid with few prospects.

AllKids has a mission to ensure poverty and inequality will not limit the educational opportunities of the children in the Smach Deng region. This brings great hope that these children will reach their potential. I applaud Paul, who undertakes the challenges of the AllKids projects in a voluntary capacity, and his Khmer staff, for the ongoing success of their initiatives and the high regard in which they are seen by the local community.

Regional Rotary Foundation Coordinator Rotary Club of Mitcham, South Australia