Hidden Treasures - honouring rural women volunteers
Hidden Treasures acknowledges the important volunteer roles women play within NSW rural communities.
It is not an award, but provides a platform to pay tribute to rural women volunteers who donate their time and energy to help others.
We hope the annual Honour Roll will improve recognition of the important and diverse roles women volunteers play as key participants within NSW rural communities and that their stories will encourage others to take on volunteering roles.
2011 Honour Roll: Celebrating 140 women volunteers
Parliament Secretary for Natural Resources Troy Grant took great pleasure in launching the 2011 Honour Roll on 15 October at the annual NSW Rural Women's Gathering held in Gloucester. He acknowledged that women are so often the backbone of families and communities and said the stories in this year's Honour Roll revealed just some of the ways women are contributing tirelessly to quality of life as unpaid workers across rural, regional and remote regions.
How to nominate someone
Nominations for the 2012 Honour Roll will open May 2012.
The 2012 Honour Roll will be launched at the 2012 Women's Gathering being held at Parkes from 12-14 October.
To nominate a Hidden Treasures volunteer simply complete the Nomination Form and tell us a short ‘story’ about why your nominee is worthy. All rural women nominated will be included in the Honour Roll.
NB: Nominations will only be accepted for NSW rural women. ‘Rural’ is defined as anyone living outside the large metropolitan centres of Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong.
Download a nomination form below or for more information call the NSW Centre for Volunteering on 02 9261 3600 or email: rural.women@industry.nsw.gov.au
Nomination Form (Microsoft Word File)
Nomination Form (Acrobat File)
Volunteering in NSW
There are almost 1.7 million volunteers, who give more than 241 million hours of voluntary work to the NSW community. The value of this contribution is estimated in excess of $2.4 billion to the State’s economy. (NSW State Plan)
Australian volunteers are essential to society, and many charities would struggle to survive without the support of their volunteers. Volunteers contribute more than 700 million hours of community service to so many areas of society, including community health care, heritage and arts, environment conservation, emergency services, education, social justice and sports. Acknowledging volunteer efforts can build self-worth amongst individuals and accelerate community spirit.
Hidden Treasures is a joint project of the Rural Women’s Network, NSW Centre for Volunteering, and the NSW Office for Women’s Policy.
National Volunteer Week: 14-20 May 2012
National Volunteer Week is the largest celebration of volunteers and volunteerism in Australia, and provides and opportunity to highlight the role of volunteers in our communities and to say thank you to the more than 5 million Australian's who volunteer.