Women creating connections and community through cooking
by Jeanette Purkis
Today I did something which would have been impossible for me just a few years ago. I got a taxi to an address I hadn’t been to before to spend an evening cooking and connecting with other women I had never met before. I attended the Canberra Cooking Circles ‘country cooking’ evening with twelve other women.
Founder of Bridging Peoples and all-round go-getter, Deborah Cummins chats candidly with Cooking Circles about Timorese women, her passion for Timor Leste and the story behind Bridging Peoples…
It’s hard to talk about ‘Timorese women’, because of course their experiences and world views vary so much depending on what class they come from, and depending on whether they consider themselves more country women or city women…
Continue reading “Five minutes with Bridging Peoples’ Deb Cummins”
A little while ago the Cooking Circles team put on a fundraiser for Timorese NGO the Alola Foundation. As regular blog readers will know, we were just a bit excited about this event for a bunch of very good reasons! Continue reading “Heart-warming fundraising for the Alola Foundation”
Find out more about Alola Foundation, their work and how you can join the fundraising campaign.
On Saturday 19 September, local not-for-profit program Cooking Circles will be hosting a fundraiser for a women’s NGO in Timor Leste, the Alola Foundation. The aim of the night is to raise funds and awareness of the amazing work of the Alola Foundation who have been working with women and families in Timor Leste since 2001.
The Alola Foundation is a non-government, not-for-profit organisation that works for women’s rights in Timor Leste, and the tagline says it all: ‘Strong Women, Strong Nation’. The organisation was founded in 2001 by Kirsty Sword Gusmao, Australian born and fighting for the Timorese people since 1991. Each year, the Alola Foundation’s partner organisation, Alola Australia, organises a fundraising campaign, MILK, to acquire much needed funds to keep the Alola Foundation operating.
It was because of Kirsty that I was prompted to learn more about Timor Leste, after I read a little about her in Canberra’s Museum of Australian Democracy, housed in Old Parliament House, Canberra. I attended a MILK fundraiser breakfast in 2012 where Kirsty spoke about the strengths and struggles of Alola’s work to date. I met her for the first time at this event and was struck by Kirsty’s quiet yet charming, powerful, presence. When I travelled to Timor Leste two months later, I visited Alola and was fortunate to spend a little time with some of the staff and women through a childcare training program an Australian friend was running. I was moved by the determination of the women I met at Alola and have remained committed to helping in whatever small way I can both personally and as a community of supporters through Cooking Circles.
To support the work of the Alola Foundation, you can donate to the MILK campaign through the Cooking Circles page, join the Alola Fundraiser being held by Cooking Circles on Saturday 19th September, find out more about the amazing work of Alola, and hold your own morning tea event to raise funds for Alola.
Disclaimer: Cooking Circles is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Alola Foundation and holds this fundraiser to support the work of the organisation only.
Up until five days ago, I thought feminism meant choices. Women choosing in the big and the small decisions about life, what we do, in line with what we value. I thought that to be a feminist, and part of a self-proclaimed feminist and gender equal society, would be measured by women exercising all the decisions over our lives.
But now I’m not so sure. Continue reading “Rethinking my take on Feminism”
