This International Women’s Day, the theme ‘Give To Gain’ calls for a mindset of generosity and collaboration in the face of gender inequality. It felt only right to honour this theme by partnering with an organisation in our local community that embodies it best: Women’s Community Shelters.
With 11 shelters across New South Wales, Women’s Community Shelters provide accommodation and support for women and children escaping violence and experiencing homelessness. It also happens to be Go-To’s 2026 holiday charity partner.
We spoke with Women’s Community Shelters' CEO Annabelle Daniel OAM about the power of community advocacy, what meaningful support looks like, and how even a $10 donation can be life-changing.
Can you give our readers an introduction to Women’s Community Shelters and your mission for those who may not be familiar with your work?
“Women's Community Shelters is working to interrupt cycles of violence and create an Australia where all women and children can flourish free from abuse.
The way we do that is by working with local communities and partners to develop more crisis accommodation shelters and safe housing for women and children—so they have a place to receive support and recover from domestic and family violence.
There are 275 women and children who are sleeping safer each night because of the work that Women's Community Shelters does. And that's the reason why I get up every day.”
This year’s IWD theme is focused on the mindset of generosity and collaboration. How does Women’s Community Shelters embody that mantra?
“At Women's Community Shelters, we encourage people to give of their time, their treasure, or their talent.
They can donate, or take the time to do a fundraising drive to help us fund new shelters. They can sit on one of our community boards or volunteer at one of our new projects, and in doing so people gain a deeper understanding of domestic and family violence.”
Women’s Community Shelters advocates for specialised wraparound support for vulnerable women. What does that look like?
“Part of our mission is to demystify what actually happens in a shelter because it's so much more than just that safe roof. The women and children that we support are as individual as any one of us.
When they come into our shelters, what they primarily need and receive help for are things like securing a more permanent safe home or accessing medical or psychological help. It can be about helping to get their children enrolled in a new school and supporting them to turn up on that first day wearing a uniform and with the right lunchbox. It can be around things like helping with legal assistance or to access police and justice services.
It can be about reconnecting with a particular community or culture in the instances of First Nations women or multi-cultural women. All of those things are part of what we do and the wraparound love and care that happens inside our shelters.”
What impact do community donations and charity partnerships play in Women’s Community Shelters?
“Look, every amount can make a real difference. $10, for example, can pay for a phone card that would enable a woman to have enough credit to make some phone calls towards finding a new rental property or helping to connect her with services or Centrelink. Those things really matter to people who have left without anything.
$50 can help provide a night of safety to a woman and her children with everything that she needs for that first 24 hours in a shelter. And that can often be the bridge to the life-saving next step for women and children.
That goes all the way up to larger donations, which can keep somebody safe for a week or a month or for their whole journey through a shelter.
These are contributions absolutely anyone can make, and all of them are life-changing.”
What do people often misunderstand about giving—especially in the context of supporting vulnerable women?
“The most common misunderstanding that people have is that they can't do anything. Because everybody can do something, even if it's a little thing.
It might even be educating yourself around the signs of coercive control—what we now know is the underpinning pattern of most domestic and family violence.
It can be about having a referral number up your sleeve for your local service or for the state hotline to put somebody onto if they disclose abuse to you.
It can be about finding out where your local domestic and family violence service is and reaching out to them to ask if they need any help with volunteering or donations. All of those things can make a difference. That's the way that we actually solve big, tricky national problems—at the local level, by everybody doing something.
Domestic and family violence is a whole-of-society problem and it needs a whole-of-community solution. We rely on every member of the community to work towards the Australia that we want to see, which is one free from abuse. Where women and children can flourish.
Domestic and family violence is a solvable problem if we all pull together. I'm actually optimistic that we can solve this, but we need to do it community by community and everybody has a role to play.”
What’s something small that can make a surprisingly big difference to women in crisis?
“We've had wonderful examples throughout our shelter network of somebody's local business just donating a raffle prize or the local bakery donating the bread at the end of the day—which helps cut down food expenses for a shelter.
It can be about those kind community gifts, which really make the women and kids in our shelters and housing feel like they are part of a broader community.
Whether it is financial donations, whether it's in-kind support, all of those things matter and make a big difference.”
How does community support tangibly change outcomes for women who come through your doors?
“Community participation and involvement helps women feel like they're not alone in going through this. And I think that's the most important thing. For so many years, a lot of the work we do in this space was kind of hidden away.
You wouldn't have even known if there was a local refuge in your area or support available. And when community gets involved in projects like this, through their time, their treasure, or their talent, that sends a message to the women we support that this shame is not theirs. That the community recognises that they've experienced abuse and wants to support them to get back on their feet.”
For International Women’s Day, you launched the Firefly First Nations Fund—what does this new project involve?
“Almost a quarter of the women and children that we support identify as Aboriginal or First Nations women. We also know that Aboriginal women and children are disproportionately affected by domestic and family violence across Australia. They're much more likely to be hospitalised and seriously injured in domestic and family violence assaults.
And so it's incredibly important that we have a culturally sensitive and appropriate response to women who reach out to us for help, which is why we wanted to foreground this year through our Firefly First Nations Fund.
The Firefly Fund provides timely, practical, culturally safe, community-led support that removes immediate barriers to safety and stability. It helps women and children move forward with dignity, healing and self-determination, on their terms.”
If you or someone you know is being affected by domestic violence, call 1800 737 732.
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