25 July 2017 – Opportunity International Australia has launched a monthly speaker series in Perth, which features leading business women who share their insights about the empowerment of women in the workplace. Kick-starting the series on 9 August are business and community development consultant and leadership mentor Karyn Lisignoli and award-winning drama specialist Nichola Renton, who will facilitate an interactive workshop designed to help women express themselves more confidently at work.

Opportunity Chief Executive Officer Robert Dunn said he is greatly looking forward to the event, which will raise funds to help women in India, Indonesia and the Philippines build businesses and break the cycle of poverty. “I’m hoping the workshop will inspire participants to confidently take the next step in their careers and at the same time to understand how they can help women in developing countries free themselves from poverty with hope, dignity and purpose.”

According to Karyn Lisignoli: “Living and working in the modern world requires many skills and competencies and one of the most important is communication. And to communicate effectively we need to know who we are and how to embrace the many aspects of ourselves.

“We all have, and can draw upon, our heart and head values and skills. Our head provides our knowledge, decisiveness, intellect; our heart provides our intuition, compassion, empathy. Neither are more important and both are essential. Both are required to build self-awareness; both are required to work with, communicate and engage others.

“The journey of self-discovery and self-awareness is one requiring enormous amounts of courage, vulnerability, compassion and grit. It requires ‘heart’. And it requires ‘head’. It requires intellectual interpretation and analysis of what you discover.

“Only when you understand your core values; your purpose; your deep drivers, will you truly understand how you think and why you react and respond in the way you do. Once you have this knowledge, once you have looked deeply within, then you can ‘look out’ effectively with confidence and compassion and engage and communicate with others, whether work colleagues, or friends, family and partners,” she added.

Nichola Renton, who uses drama to help women express themselves more confidently, says: “There is immense power in working with the head and heart. It ignites empathy and compassion. It increases our emotional intelligence and resilience. Our heart space is just as important as our headspace in the workplace and we need to embrace both if we are to communicate confidently and with empathy.”

Women4Women Speaker Series

When: 5.30PM-7.30PM 9 August 2017
Where: The Platform Level 3, 256 Adelaide Terrace, Perth
RSVP: By Monday 7 August here.

Opportunity International Australia

Opportunity International Australia enables you to invest in a mother living in poverty so that she can use a small loan to buy an item like a sewing machine and start a small business. For a family in a developing country who can’t afford the basics, a gift as small as $70 can be life changing. With this hand up, a mother can put food on the table, send her children to school and transform her family’s future for generations. Mothers want what is best for their children, and as businesses become successful (98% of Opportunity’s loans are repaid), your help means they can make their dreams for their children come true. For more information, visit www.opportunity.org.au

Media Contact

Marie Kelly-Davies
Media and Communications Manager
Opportunity International Australia
0408 256 381
mkelly-davies@opportunity.org