I’ve found these last few months of mothering hard. Mostly because I’ve had to be more than a Mum, and a wife, a daughter and a Bonnie’s family worker – I’ve also had to be a teacher.    In this last year, mothers everywhere have had to homeschool their children and it hasn’t been […]

  I grew up in Zimbabwe and there is no place like Bonnie’s over there.  I still remember my Mum telling me about a time she wrote to a famous Zimbabwean magazine column asking for help because of how my Dad was treating her. She waited months and months for a response, until she finally […]

The Taliban are back. As I sit in my living room, the TV blaring, my pregnant belly kicking, I can’t believe I am seeing my parent’s nightmares become a reality, again. I might never be able to go back to Afghanistan- back to my country, my hometown.  I am originally from a town called Mazar-I-Sharif. […]

  There’s a lot of things to miss right now – friends, family, travelling outside my LGA, travelling outside my state… travelling anywhere.  But what I’m really missing at the moment is food. And not just food itself (I’m definitely not starving), but rather the experience of food. The comfort, spontaneity and excitement of having food […]

  “Do people speak up when they hear or see violence? Or do they just turn a blind eye and pretend it’s not their business?”  After working in DV for so long, I still ask myself these questions. Despite all the new TV shows, podcasts and social media I’m still caught wondering about how much […]

  Working with women for women was a big change from one of my previous careers where I worked as an Administrative Assistant to the Financial Controller of an International Property & Investment company. While that job was a good experience, working on the frontline helping women every day is something else! My role as […]

  As a case worker, supporting women with children who are fleeing domestic violence comes with many emotions. Walking alongside a family and being part of their journey and witnessing small wins along the way is what keeps me going. Whenever I get asked what I do for work and I tell them, the response […]

Recently a family who were moving to Queensland arrived at our doors to donate some of their kids toys and baby goods. During the visit, the father said he was a barber and he would be happy to donate haircuts to the children. A family took up his offer. The father came back to donate […]

 I once read a quote by Vincent Van Gogh that said, “Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.” Being a Child and Youth (CYW) worker means no two days are the same. On the surface, what we do might seem easy to define but actually the […]

Marryanne’s Mission to Find Out What’s Missing   In light of the latest devastating murders of two women, we need to ask ourselves, what can we do so that women don’t fall through the gaps in services and care? What changes can we make so every woman gets the best response to support them in […]

  As a caseworker working with women experiencing Domestic Violence, I’ve learnt that there is no no one perfect road to safety. Sometimes it is direct and other times it’s a learning experience with various stops along the way.  Recently I was working with a particular client and the experience genuinely broke my heart. “Everything […]

  I come from a background in medical science and a laboratory so quiet you can hear a pin drop, so moving to Bonnie’s was quite different to what I had become accustomed to. The office here has a constant buzz of activity with women coming in and out, children’s toys scattered across the floor […]