Founder and Managing Director of Share the Dignity & 2023 QLD recipient of the Australian Awards for Excellence in Women’s Leadership, Rochelle Courtenay received her award at The Australian Women’s Leadership Brisbane Symposium on May 12.
Share the Dignity is a national charity founded in 2015 with the mission to ensure that everyone is afforded the dignity in life that so many of us take for granted. Share the Dignity brings dignity to women, girls and anyone who menstruates who is experiencing homelessness, domestic violence or period poverty through the distribution of period products. Share the Dignity is powered by volunteers and through Rochelle’s contagious spirit, more than 6000 volunteers have jumped on board to help ‘share the dignity’.
In 2023, Rochelle was the QLD recipient of the Australian Awards for Excellence in Women’s Leadership. Nominated by members of the public, the awards highlight the successes of Australian women leaders across various industries and their achievements. Rochelle has also been recognised for her work with other accolades to date including; Finalist Australian of the Year, Cosmopolitan Humanitarian of the Year and Pride of Australia. As well as holding biannual collections for period products nationwide, Rochelle is passionate about advocating for change and creating long-term solutions.
Share the Dignity successfully advocated to axe the tax on period products, with the GST on period products being removed in early 2019. Additionally, Share the Dignity has been advocating for free period products in schools for years and since then many states have begun implementing programs. Most recently, after finding out that patients in Australian hospitals were being denied period products and instead being given diapers, gauze, bed pads and towels, Share the Dignity has turned its focus to advocating for pads to be provided to patients for free in Australian public hospitals. Share the Dignity has collected and distributed over 4+ million period products to date through multiple initiatives across Australia.
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