It starts in 1986…

With a safe and welcoming space focused on well-being, created by women for women, including those identifying in ways differing to traditional gender norms. This initial group formed a not-for-profit Collective, enabling all staff, volunteers and members to have a say in how the organisation was run. Wellington Women’s Health Collective went on to become an established part of the Wellington community. Over the years we have lived in different homes, in one chapter being housed alongside multiple other community organisations serving Wellington women. The relationships woven between these organisations continue to serve the people we serve.

While the Collective structure served us well for many years, we are now evolving to fit our shifting society. Our new structure, finalised in early 2021, is made up of a Board providing support and guidance alongside our dedicated staff. This shift helps us continue to respond to the changing needs of our community, our workforce and the environment, enabling WWHC to live and evolve its values, with the well-being of women at it’s heart.

Additional challenges within the Covid-19 environment of the last couple of years have impacted how we carry out our work and offered us opportunities to look at our systems and funding streams. Our ethos of accessibility remains the same and we navigated changes and restrictions with this at the core of our decision making. Out of these challenges we improved and streamlined our policies, procedures and systems. Like many others we navigated the online world to provide continuity in our support spaces, stay connected as an organisation and with other organisations within our community. We have utilised this as an opportunity to reach clients who may not have otherwise been able to come into our office. Our services continue to include one-to-one support, information, reproductive health products, referrals, online and in person counselling.

Volunteers are a huge and valued part of our story. And as we all know not-for-profit organisations are often part love for paid staff as well. As a feminist organisation we want to acknowledge the pay gap and the historical reliance on women in voluntary roles by shifting away from a reliance on volunteers, increasing paid positions within Wellington Women’s Health Collective. As well as acknowledging the complex skillsets and seriousness of our work with improved pay rates. We have begun this endeavour with a recent grant enabling us to create a paid Counselling position. Long term, securing ongoing funding to maintain this will also provide staff stability enabling us to minimise waiting lists and further grow our services.

Diversity within our services is another growth area and we are excited to be kicking off group support sessions this year. This helps us reach even more people in need, takes us into Wellington’s suburbs, increasing our accessibility and helps us to help communties of women better support themselves and each other.

We are also very proud to continue supporting staff in ways that match our values by providing various supervision options, looking for affordable professional development opportunities and continuing to structure planning and meetings in ways that are inclusive, connective and recognise the people within the roles.

We hope that you will join us in whatever ways you can to share who we are and what we do, to champion our causes and ensure we are around for many years to come to continue our mahi of accessible, safe and welcoming support.