It takes a village to raise a child – but with no family, friends or mothers groups nearby, too many rural women are raising children without support when they desperately need it.
Stephanie Trethewey experienced that isolation herself when she moved from Melbourne to a beef farm in Tasmania’s Central North with her husband and first baby.
So, in 2019, the former TV journalist set up national charity Motherland to connect mothers raising children on the land, along with her podcast, Motherland Australia.
Then in 2021, she created Australia’s first online rural mothers group program – Motherland Village. The six-week online program matches rural mums to their own small support group to relieve isolation and improve wellbeing. In less than two years, Stephanie’s online program has 20 virtual villages and is supporting over 200 rural women.
In 2022, Stephanie won the AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award for her trailblazing work – and she’s just getting started.