Vision & Mission
WHISE Strategic Plan 2023-28
WHISE is proud to announce and share to our partners, stakeholders and community our new Strategic Plan. Launched at our AGM on the 26th of October, the new plan is the result of significant and deep reflection by our organisation and key partners, investigation into the value and hopes that our members and partners have for their local Women’s Health Service and, robust discussion with our Board and staff on the next phase of WHISE.
The New Plan – Key Highlights
The plan builds strengthens our past vision to see “A region where gender equality is everybody’s experience, empowering women and girls to be safe, healthy and thriving” and this will be achieved through the following objectives:
- Everyone in our region experiences gender equality in their daily lives.
- Women and girls in our region have access to gender-informed and appropriate healthcare.
- Women and girls in our region have access to sexual and reproductive healthcare services and information.
- Women and girls in our region live free of gendered violence, and in a healthy sustainable environment.
Building on the legacy of our work the strategy is based on a theory of change that will have WHISE deliver work across three pillars:
- Inclusion – to build practices internally and externally that are intersectional so that we enable ways of working that decolonise, are anti-racist, embrace non-binary definition of gender, centre the lived experience of marginalisation and enact climate justice
- Impact – to ensure that our work is valued and understood, that we are respected, trusted and influential across our region, that our partnerships and collaborations are transformative, that we build the evidence base through measurement that is impactful and systemic, that our workplace culture is innovative and adaptive and that we work to dismantle systems and strengthen intersectional practice
- Sustainability – so our staff are skills supported and resilient, that we have a consolidates and robust funding base with income pathways, we are environmentally sustainable, that our staff and board reflect the community we service and that we consistently embody our values through our operational practice.
Key to our success however will be the values and operating principles which will be core to how we work and operate.
Our values in our new plan comprise:
- Curiosity
- Collaboration
- Authenticity
- Feminist Leadership
Our Core Operating Principles are:
- Intersectional feminism
- Compassion
- Lived experience
WHISE would like to extend their sincere and deep thanks to all involve and pay a specific and special thanks to Julie Kun, from Julie Kun Consulting who supported, guided and enabled our discussions over the last 9 months.
We look forward to realising this new strategic plan with our colleagues, partners, community and members.
Our Values
| Value | What it means for WHISE |
|---|---|
| CURIOSITY | We have a thirst for knowledge and embrace learning opportunities. We ask questions, listen and explore new possibilities. We acknowledge and use our mistakes to learn, build new understanding and improve our practice. We seek out a diversity of opinions and embrace new perspectives as these offer opportunities for growth. |
| COLLABORATION | Collaboration is fundamental to our work. We believe in the power of working together and collective action to create a more equitable world. We build, support and encourage collaboration within our organisation and across the region. We value and respect the skills, knowledge and experience of others and seek to create opportunities to share ideas, knowledge and expertise. |
| AUTHENTICITY | Integrity, honesty, trustworthiness and reliability provide the foundation for all our work. We act according to our values daily, respectfully and robustly, holding ourselves accountable to each other and our communities. We are committed to open communication and transparent decision-making. When faced with difficult decisions, we do the right thing to achieve our vision and purpose, even in the face of adversity. |
| FEMINIST LEADERSHIP | We are leaders with purpose, proudly feminist, using our power and social capital to inspire, influence and build a society in which gender equality is the experience of everyone in our region. With courage, resourcefulness and energy, we work across the region to advance our goals, developed in partnership with our community. We work with transparency, share power, and build and acknowledge the leadership of others so that collectively we create transformative change. |
Intersectional Feminism
WHISE is a feminist organisation that practises intersectionality through all our work in prevention of violence against women, gender equity, mental wellbeing and sexual and reproductive health.
Learning from leaders in the field, an intersectional approach acknowledges the multiple forms of oppression that individuals experience, simultaneously at times. This includes gender, religion, sexuality, disability, nationality and racial identity. Intersectionality is an analysis of the power dynamics that impact people’s lives; defining place, experience and context. Intersectionality is not just about difference but about how specific differences come about and what purpose these differences serve as they inhabit everyday life.
Our intersectional and feminist approach is visible through our work in a variety of ways. WHISE is deeply committed to the long-term process of ensuring our feminism is intersectional. We cannot do this without hearing from our community, partners and stakeholders. WHISE recognises that this is a process of change that is ever changing, in response to a system of oppression.
WHISE seeks to better highlight some of these differences including indigeneity, religious belief and disability. We actively seek opportunities to hear how these differences have impacted on people's experiences of violence against women, and advocacy for sexual rights in disabled communities.
We understand through our work that ‘woman’ can never express the experience of every woman – the process of our primary prevention and health promotion work seeks to practice with the knowledge that a ‘woman’s’ experience is dependent on many facets of her lived experience.