On the cusp of International Women’s Day 2025, Wollongong’s top citizens for the past three years have come together for a special lunch where they talked about the sisterhood, and the challenges facing women, the nation, and the world.
In February, history was made when, for the third time in a row a woman was named Wollongong’s Citizen of the Year. When Wollongong’s first woman Lord Mayor, Tania Brown, named Malika Reese, an advocate for victim-survivors of violence as our top citizen for 2025, she joined Aboriginal elder Dr Aunty Barbara Nicholson (2024) and the long-term executive director of the Illawarra Women’s Health Centre, Sally Stevenson AM (2023) on the city’s honour roll.
Aunty Barb hosted the lunch, and the significance of the occasion wasn’t lost on her, or the others. Those who know Barb’s delicious sense of humour and wicked intelligence will appreciate that she proclaimed her vegetarian feast a lunch fit for ‘three queens’.
In this Illawarra Flame special to mark International Women’s Day, let’s hear how their coming together impacted and inspired them, and exactly what was on their mind over a memorable meal together.
First course – Dr Aunty Barbara Nicholson
Three women of note forging connections in a framework of discreet experiences and in the safety of Sisterhood. We unify over lunch on Wadi Wadi land, looking south over the once-upon-a-time sand hills now forest, then onto Long Point. Lovely vistas lill our senses to a mental stupor till we abandon all thought of story making and instead we engage in sharing long-held secrets of similar experiences.
We each instinctively know and understand all that was said and all that was left unsaid. We know because we are women of the Sisterhood, that body of women who will no longer be told to put the aprons back on, will no longer be quiet. We will call out those shames that keep making regular appearances on society’s landscape. This is why we are here, together, on this day. These are the values that unite us, that bond us in Sisterhood.
What an immense privilege it is to welcome Sally and Malika into my space and to absorb their warmth and wisdom, sharing knowledge, understanding and insights. This gathering deserves to be marked with a celebratory feast, so I made one. Replete with great food and even greater discourse, we ended our gathering with love and solidarity.
Second course – Malika Reese
It was an honour to be included at Aunty Barbara’s table, sitting before a feast with Sally. I felt humbled, still processing being the recipient of the Wollongong Council’s 2025 Citizen Of the Year award. These two previous winners: fierce, formidable, straight talking visionaries, have worked tirelessly for their communities for decades. I hope to do the same.
We talked of Sisterhood and of how we can help lift up the young women coming behind us. To help all women understand that their worth is not in their appearance, their partners or possessions, but in themselves, their innate power and their voice.
We are living in crazy, unprecedented times. The sisterhood is uniting to help bring balance to a world that desperately needs healing. In such chaotic times, it is also vital that we come together in joy and laughter.
It was a delight to sit at the table and connect. We talked about everything from child abuse and incarceration to family, creativity and our hopes for the future. And there is hope. Young women are stepping into their power and men of all ages are speaking out as our allies for positive change. We three are an example of how Sisterhood gathers together those from different experiences and backgrounds, to dedicate themselves to the common good of all.
Third course – Sally Stevenson AM
As we sat at Aunty Barb Nicholson’s table for lunch, filled with a sumptuous vegetarian feast she had prepared for us, looking out over the once denuded but now lush sandhills of Coomaditchie, where Aunty Barb was born, I felt at peace.
The good luck and good fortune that brought me to this place, at this time, to be with two extraordinary women, Aunty Barb and Malika reminded me that amongst the chaos, and horror of the world the Sisterhood is strong. And it always will be.
We’ve come from such different backgrounds – Malika sharing the beautiful photo of her, as a young girl with her mum, Bobby Sykes and Mum Shirl. Aunty Barb offering us stories behind the paintings on the wall, her first pair of patent leather shoes and a signed book from her work with inmates in Junee prison, and me from middle-class white Australia.
There we were laughing, listening, eating, learning. I honestly had to pinch myself. To be with such magnificent women, two matriarchs of the Illawarra, social justice warriors (yes, Aunty Barb had a keffiyeh draped across on her lounge chairs), women who have experienced adversity pain, and sorrow but who exude strength, joy and light. And fierceness.
They are the Sisterhood at its very best, as it should be. And there I was in their orbit. How honoured was I, to be there, lifted up by them? These are the moments we remember.
