The past eighteen months have been highly challenging for businesses across Australia. Despite a global pandemic, business owners have strived to open their doors and welcome customers when possible. To show our appreciation, here at BizCover we have continued our tradition of giving back to the small business community through our $2000 BizGiver prize. This can be used to purchase a good or service that removes barriers to growth or makes life a little easier for business owners.
With over 200 worthy submissions, it was extremely difficult to narrow it down to one winner.
The winner of this round’s BizGiver program is Empowered Today, a not-for-profit organisation based near Byron Bay dedicated to providing Empowerment and Self Defence (ESD) training for women and girls. We spoke to Lisa Evans, certified ESD trainer, about how this prize will help grow the business.
Why did you start your business?
It sounds corny but we started our business to make a difference. We wanted to address the alarming and abhorrent statistic that ‘1 in 5 Australian women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime’ and be part of the solution in reducing that statistic. It is our hope that Empowerment Self Defence (ESD) is recognised as a primary prevention method in reducing the incidence of gender based violence. The concept of ESD has a long history in the United States but is relatively new in Australia. There is a lot of evidence to show the effectiveness of trauma-informed training designed by women, specifically for women, that teaches recognition of threatening situations with appropriate boundary-setting skills and risk-assessment strategies.
Why did you enter the BizGiver competition? Why did you wish for your particular wish?
We started our not-for-profit organisation at the end of 2019 just before the pandemic started and we have had issues with funding since. We really want to expand the services we offer and the capability of the organisation, and having this wish will allow us to do that.
What does being a small business owner mean to you?
It means that we get to be personal in our approach. Every contact we make and every person at our training is someone we have communicated with directly. It also allows us to build relationships and collaborate with our local community and tailor our services to their specific needs.
Why do you love your job?
I love my job because we get to make a difference in people’s lives. Both my husband (who co-facilitates our trainings) and I love teaching and engaging with our students; seeing the change that happens in them – even over the course of just one day – is amazing to witness. Knowing that we are making a difference to every one of our students is incredibly rewarding.
How will winning this prize help your business?
Winning this prize allows us to offer regular self-defence classes and workshops and cover different kinds of scenarios that women might find themselves in. There is a larger variety of scenarios we would like our participants to experience but we have needed a matted area in order to make these available and ensure their safety.
Where do you see your business in 5 years’ time? What are your growth goals?
We see the need for women all over Australia to have access to the training we offer so our long term plans are to purchase a 4WD vehicle and visit rural and outback communities. This will allow us to train local representatives to be instructors and therefore be able to provide training to their community. We also recognise the value of online learning and are looking to develop an online course, so that no matter where you are in Australia, you would have access to the fundamental aspects of our training.
What are the biggest challenges your business faces? Will winning the award help?
One of our biggest challenges is getting to the point where ESD is part of everyday language in Australia, so that people understand the concepts and recognise its importance as a primary prevention method of gender based violence. This is of course equally important in the corridors of power so that support and funding are made available to provide wide-spread coverage of ESD throughout the country. Winning this award will certainly help us make ESD both more accessible and known in the Northern Rivers region. “From a small acorn a mighty oak tree grows”.
What have been your biggest achievements?
Our business is still very young, so getting to the point where organisations seek us out to provide training for them has been a big achievement. Since ESD is a relatively new concept for the Australian market it is very rewarding to find organisations recognising the value of what we do and actively wanting to engage our services.
To learn more about Empowered Today and all the great work that they do, please visit the following links:
https://EmpoweredToday.org.au/
https://www.facebook.com/Empowered-Today-100252208022652
https://www.instagram.com/empowered.today/
http://linkedin.com/in/empowered-today-28b1a9195
