Women’s Agenda is a journal focusing on how women work and live in Australia. In July of 2022, we had the amazing honour of being featured in a Women’s Agenda article. The article highlighted the work that STEM Sisters has been doing and the impact that we have had on women of colour in the STEM fields. The article focused on our astounding achievement, which was receiving the Business Award at TechDiversity Awards that year. The TechDiversity Awards aim to display the splendid work and initiatives that have impacted the diverse community in the Technology Workforce.
Our Work: Empowering Women in STEM
The article followed our founder, Dr Ruwangi Fernando’s journey in bringing a change to the STEM scene in Australia, and her efforts to empower the women of colour in STEM fields, seeing their unique intersectional struggles as an wooden, steel ceilings that must be broken – in the best interest of the women and also of the Australian STEM industries. The founder faced these struggles as a young female immigrant coming to Australia as an international student from Sri Lanka, so it had lit a fire within her, and she felt her passion grow to improve the environment for the all women of colour studying and working in STEM related fields. The article introduced the work that STEM Sisters has been doing as an organisation, especially the wide range of initiatives that we have been working hard to push out into the world of STEM women, like our Ambassador program, the award-winning magazine – MAGNIFY, as well as our annual Dress to Express initiative, which aims to boost the confidence of the women in STEM.
As a community that consists of women of colour, we want all members of the STEM Sisters community to feel seen and to know that they are not alone in the journey that awaits them. While the STEM industries are dominated by men, or perhaps precisely because it is, STEM Sisters is of the belief that we, as the minority, must help one another in order to secure a place for ourselves. As such, we have many initiatives in place to help those in need of guidance and support. Out of the many ways we strive to do so, our LinkedIn group to share professional opportunities – Awareness of Opportunities – has been a key player in spreading the opportunities that women of colour have lacked the access to.
We’d like to send our heartfelt gratitude to Women’s Agenda for their work and the opportunity for us to be featured in such an inspiring journal, not just for women in STEM, but for all women who felt that they have been overlooked.