Brave Space: How Feminist Principles Can Transform Your Work, Life, and Practice

Dates: March 17 & 18 
Time: 9am-1pm AEST (over two consecutive days) 
Where: Online via Zoom 
Cost: $420 + GST 

15% discount for enrolment of 2 or more colleagues or friends. 
Full scholarships are available for First Nations people. Please contact Clara at cbradley@iwda.org.au to register. 

Brave Space: How Principles from Feminism Can Be Applied to Transform Your Work Life and Practice, 

Are you looking for a space where you can explore feminist principles in a way that feels welcoming, inclusive, and transformative—no matter where you are on your journey? 

Our Brave Space workshop is designed to foster exactly that: a supportive environment where you can connect, learn, and grow. 

Are you curious about how power operates in our daily lives? Seeing how power can either uplift or undermine us is key to creating meaningful change. By learning to recognise and challenge oppressive power, we can begin to build practices rooted in equality, care, and sustainability. 

In this interactive two-day workshop, we will introduce you to feminist principles that can reshape how you work, lead and live. After the workshop you will have: 

• A deeper understanding of our 12 core feminist values and uncover ways of implementing them into your work, life and practice. 

• Analytical tools to support power analysis, which is critical to challenging oppressive power while building transformative power 

• A framework for fostering cultures of self and collective care 

• Access to IWDA’s free feminist toolkits and training resources, including your own Brave Space Workbook 

Join us for Brave Space, where we’ll create a shared learning environment to explore the power of feminist principles and how they can reshape our work and lives. 

What are others saying about this workshop? 

Having worked in the feminist sector for many years, this workshop offered a chance to spend time reflecting on foundational concepts with my current experience, and the interactive group discussion and activities enabled me to explore further how this applies to my practice so that I can take action straight away. Thank you for the brave space!  

The workshop was a friendly and safe space to explore feminism and power and see where they show up in the personal and professional spaces. It provides great theory as well as ideas for practical application. The team are knowledgeable and model feminism throughout the workshop sessions. 

The workshop was well planned, communicated easily and the breaks in between whether the games or time out were very useful to keep attentive and have key takeaways! 

What does the workshop cover? 

Day 1 

Feminist Values in Action 

We introduce participants to 12 core feminist values, including collaborative power, decoloniality, intersectionality, and deep democracy. Participants are provided with practical examples of how these feminist values can be promoted and are given the opportunity to contextualise and envisage practical steps to take forward within their organisation and personal lives. 

Transformative Change 

Real change requires bringing your organisation, community, or family along for the journey. This session raises some common challenges participants may experience when seeking to align feminist values in their environment. This session will explore strategies and tactics for persuasive and values-driven communication to build transformative change. 

Day 2 

Understanding Power and Why it Matters 

Understanding power and how it operates is central to feminist practice. A deeper understanding of gendered power relations reveals that power is exercised on three levels: visible, invisible and hidden. Participants will gain a deeper understanding of power so that they can identify and challenge oppressive power in their work, life and practice.  

Creating a Culture of Care and Resilience  

During this session on self and collective care, the characteristics of resilience and burnout are illustrated to participants alongside activities to help infuse resilience practices in their daily lives, giving participants the tools to recognise and avoid burnout. This session will also address the how power relates to our understanding and avoidance of care.  

Who is this workshop for?  

This workshop is for individuals, organisations, groups, teams or collectives who have a desire to more closely align their organisational systems, strategies and culture with women’s rights and feminist principles. 

About the facilitators  

 Clara Bradley is the Advocacy Advisor at IWDA. She started her career as a lawyer working in human rights law reform in Victoria before moving to the community development sector. She has over 10 years’ experience working in advocacy and facilitating consultations with communities and people with lived experience throughout the region. She now works with women’s rights organisations in Southeast Asia and the Pacific to support their strategic advocacy. 

Nilusha Dassenaike is the Intersectional Feminist Workshops Coordinator and Facilitator at IWDA. An experienced educator with over 11 years of teaching and facilitation at the University of Melbourne and Melbourne Polytechnic. Nilusha specialises in Feminist Organisational Capacity Strengthening and works with organisations in Asia and the Pacific to align their vision and mission with feminist values such as intersectionality, decoloniality, and collective care—principles that also shape her pedagogical approach, fostering inclusive, transformative, and collaborative learning environments.