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The PACEsetters Project: MCWH to Showcase Immigrant and Refugee Women's Leadership in Their Own Words
PACEsetters
The PACEsetters Project set out to document and promote the PACE participant's stories to inspire other
immigrant and refugee women to participate in leadership roles. The project also trained women as media advocates,
so that the women themselves can promote their own stories to the broader community. A highlight of the media advocacy
training was a lively presentation from Melbourne ABC Radio presenter, Lindy Burns, which involved radio interview role plays with the women.
Although the PACEsetters Project was officially completed in December 2010, it is the women's stories which have a left a
compelling testament to the power of immigrant and refugee women's knowledge, experience and leadership capacity.
"The need for change bulldozed a road down the centre of my mind."
Maya Angelou
An Introduction to the PACEsetters Stories
If stories can connect us to a world outside of our own, they also challenge us to see beyond the familiar. In sharing their inspirational stories, the women of PACE not only challenge us to reassess our ideas about what it means to be a leader, they also enable us to see past the label of the 'immigrant' or 'refugee' woman. The stories documented here are not those of the Immigrant and Refugee Woman usually described in research reports, or those in government policy, or news reportage. Instead, the stories-told in the women's own words-paint a picture of the complexity and diversity of experience of growing up, settling and living in Australia. The stories are united in their ability to convey each woman's wisdom, courage, and quiet persistence in meeting the challenges of their extraordinary, everyday lives. If the words 'journey' and 'resilience' have lately been overused, the women's stories transform our understanding of those words in profoundly political and personal ways.
Immigrant and refugee women can lead the way.
The PACE women have now cleared a path,
read their stories and be inspired.
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