Women of Colour Melbourne Gathering 2026


Now in its ninth year, the Annual Gathering is the heart of our year: a day for women of colour across Naarm to come together in solidarity, to be seen, heard, and held by community.

This year we turn toward each other, and ask: how do we hold ourselves and one another so we can keep showing up, for our families, our communities and each other, in a way that sustains us too? Expect a morning of rich conversation and connection, a shared meal together, and your choice of an interactive breakout sessions in the afternoon, with space along the way simply to rest and be together.

This is a space by women of colour, for women of colour. A place to share our experiences and stand together across our different histories and communities, because the strength to keep going is something we build side by side.

2026 Program

For more detailed session descriptions, please scroll down to "2026 Session Details"

• 9am | Registration desk opens

• 10am | Welcome to country, with Aunty Annette Xieberras

• 10.35am | Cultural Safety, and holding space in the inter, with Amanda Sibosado, Maya Ghattas and Dr Lilly Brown from Shifting Ground (Keynote)

• 11.45am | Water Break

• 11.55am | We really are what we eat, with Ronja Sen

• 12.30pm | Lunch provided by Manpreet Sekhon, the Curry Queen

• 1.40pm | Afternoon Workshops (choose one)

  • A: Between Two Worlds: Creating Your Own Identity in Australia, with Anuya Ketkar

  • B: Reclaiming Intuition: Your Body of Knowledge, with Cathy Williams

  • C: Re-membering, belonging and becoming through creative practice - Decolonial and Indigenous methodologies, with Nisa Yam Richy

  • D: What's your flavour?, with Uppma Virdi

  • E: Reframing Neurodivergence for Women of Colour, with Naz Jacobs and Danai Harawa facilitated by Dr Kim Gordon

  • F: Cultural Safety, and holding space in the inter, with Amanda Sibosado and Maya Ghattas from Shifting Ground

• 3.10pm | Afternoon Tea

• 3.30pm | Strings of Connection, with QiQi

• 3.45pm | Collective Reflection

• 4.30pm | Closing Circle: Voices Together, with Nicki Johnson and Sandra Daza

• 4.45pm | Event ends

Event Details

When: Saturday 24 October 2026

Where: RMIT University, 435 - 457 Swanston Street, Melbourne CBD (Level 4, Building 80) (Click here for a Google Map)

Price: $55 (+booking fee)

Your ticket includes lunch for the day.

We will have a quiet space, baby feeding space and a dedicated prayer room available on site.

Please be aware that photography and filming will take place at this event.

We want to make this event as accessible as possible.

If you are a pensioner, health care card holder, or experiencing financial hardship, contact us at hello@wocmelbourne.org.au for concession options. 

Who is the Annual Gathering for?

The purpose of this event is to create a culturally safe space where women of colour can share their experiences with others who share similar experiences.

"Women of colour" is not only a description but an act of solidarity. The term emerged in 1977, when Black, Latina, Asian American and Indigenous women came together at the US National Women's Conference to build a shared political identity across their different communities and experiences of racism.​ ​

We carry that meaning forward in a local context. Our definition centres women who experience systemic racism and marginalisation because of visible difference, ethnicity or cultural background, often linked to histories of colonisation and migration. This is a self-identifying community, every woman of colour belongs here, trans and intersex women included.​ ​ We hold this community on the unceded lands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, the sovereign First Peoples of this country. We honour First Nations women who claim a place among us, and recognise that most of us are settlers, carrying our own experiences of racism alongside that truth​

If you do not identify as a woman of colour but have landed on this page - thank you for checking us out! Given this is a dedicated event for women of colour, we ask that you honour the purpose of this space. If you would like to support our community as an ally, you are welcome to make a donation instead to show your support and energy for our cause or contact finance@wocmelbourne.org.au to discuss sponsorship options.

Women of Colour Melbourne Inc.

Women of Colour Melbourne is a grassroots not-for-profit organisation committed to empowering women of colour in Melbourne and across Victoria by creating safe spaces, fostering belonging, and advocating for equity. Our primary goal is to support women of colour in overcoming systemic barriers while celebrating our diverse identities and contributions to society.

We provide spaces for women of colour to connect, heal, and grow through events, cultural workshops, and storytelling initiatives. For women of colour, by women of colour. We are in service to our community.

For more information about Women of Colour Melbourne, follow us on Instagram.

2026 Session Details

Keynote: Cultural Safety, and holding space in the inter, with Amanda Sibosado, Maya Ghattas and Dr Lilly Brown from Shifting Ground

Cultural safety is a way of thinking about power. It’s also a sensibility and a practice we can build together, across different cultures and histories. Fascism is rising, and solidarity between us is what it will take to meet it – so why is cultural safety being named in policy, training, public statements, while the power it's meant to shift often stays untouched? This keynote is designed to build that practice in the room: what it takes to hold space for each other, so what we build together can hold.

Morning: We really are what we eat, with Ronja Sen

A session about food and culture - and let's be honest, every woman of colour is a foodie. Join Ronja aka @moneyandmouth, who will lead a conversation on how food is culture, and therefore can be appropriated, and how we can be the ones to start valuing our cuisines. Our flavours, techniques and stories have been carried across generations and borders - this session is about giving us language to understand what feels unjust, whilst connecting more deeply with who we are.

PARALLEL AFTERNOON SESSIONS - CHOOSE ONE:

Session A: Between Two Worlds: Creating Your Own Identity in Australia, with Anuya Ketkar

How do we build an identity in Australia while honouring our heritage? This interactive session explores the space between culture, migration, and belonging. Through personal storytelling and guided activities, participants will reflect on inherited traditions, Australian experiences, and what to keep, adapt, or let go. We will also unpack cultural expectations, colourism, and the pressures that shape our self-image. Most importantly, this workshop offers a space to embrace identity as an evolving journey rather than an either/or choice. Discover how to celebrate your roots while navigating who you are becoming in Australia.

Session B: Reclaiming Intuition: Your Body of Knowledge, with Cathy Williams

In this dynamic interactive workshop, we’ll explore how culture, trauma, relationships and societal pressures can disconnect women from their bodies and intuitive knowing. Drawing from her own experience of losing herself within family expectations, psychological abuse and systems that failed her, Cathy shares creative, body-based practices that supported her to feel safe, regulated and at home within herself. Through gentle experiential exercises, reflection and curiosity, participants will explore their unique body signals, cultivate self-trust, meet emotions compassionately, and reconnect with the intuitive wisdom, resilience and power already within.

Session C: Re-membering, belonging and becoming through creative practice - Decolonial and Indigenous methodologies, with Nisa Yam Richy

No experience needed! BYO own photos/materials (optional) - all other materials provided. 

In this creative session, we will share stories of re-membering, belonging and becoming through ancestral and contemporary creative practice as a way of repairing connections to Land, story and culture. Re-membering is a process of both ‘putting ourselves back together’, and of reconnecting with relational systems of belonging. This session will begin with story telling (presentation), followed by a creative session (collage!). We will explore both decolonial and Indigenous knowledge systems, and position creative practice as a central ‘tool’ or pathway for our own becoming.

Session D: What's your flavour?, with Uppma Virdi

Every spice, every ingredient, all of us, we all have energy. Water, earth, fire and much more shape how we experience the world. As WOC, we carry generations of wisdom in our cultures. What happens when we tap into that?

I work with spices every day. I'll teach you how to sense the energy in flavour, how spices work together and create balance in a blend. You'll discover your own spice profile because we all have one, just like star signs. Come get hands-on with spices through touch, taste and smell to uncover your unique spice profile.

Session E: Reframing Neurodivergence for Women of Colour, with Naz Jacobs and Danai Harawa facilitated by Dr Kim Gordon

This session welcomes two speakers, Naz Jacobs and Danai Harawa, followed by an in-conversation style discussion led by Dr Kim Gordon.

Decolonising our understanding of Autism & ADHD, with Naz Jacobs

Discussions of Autism and ADHD have finally made it into the mainstream. Unfortunately, the distinct experiences of neurodivergent people of colour continue to be rarely considered. Our exclusion from current frameworks and discourse can have huge impacts on our lives - including how we understand ourselves and each other. This presentation invites us to rethink our current perspectives of neurodivergence. Together we consider strength-based approaches, grounded in compassion and community, that validate our unique ways of being.

The Ecology of Thriving, with Danai Harawa

What actually happens in our brains when we think, feel, learn and interact with the world? And why do neurodivergent minds thrive in some environments but struggle in others? Drawing on cognitive neuroscience, psychology and public health, this session explores how brain function, sensory processing, emotional regulation and our nervous systems interact with our biology, lived experiences and social environments. Through the lens of neurodiversity, we’ll unpack the fascinating relationship between our brains and the world around us, challenge conventional ideas of what it means to function ‘normally’, and explore how we can create environments that support different minds to flourish.

Session F: Solidarity in the inter, with Amanda Sibosado and Maya Ghattas from Shifting Ground

Australia was built on severing connections to land, water, language and culture, and on insisting there was only one way to live. Rising fascism, ecological collapse: today’s crises grow from that same erasure of difference, and we feel them in this room across our homelands, here and abroad.

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson frames solidarity as “constellations of co-resistance”: shared action and care for land, carried out through specific relationships that strengthen each of our struggles. Aimee Carrillo Rowe’s call to “enter the inter” asks us to work in the space between each other, where differences are held.

After a panel discussion, we’ll explore what solidarity and resistance mean for us, and what they demand of us, in defence of our distinct worlds and shared futures. This conversation is grounded in, and accountable to, First Nations leadership of the resistance in this place, the ground every constellation of co-resistance stands on.

Emcee: Mati Chinyanda

Rooted in her Zimbabwean heritage, Mati Chinyanda is passionate about storytelling, authentic conversation and creating spaces where women of colour feel seen, heard and connected. She is the founder and co-host of What Left the Group Chat, a podcast exploring identity, culture, relationships and the conversations that shape women’s lives.