I’m holding Australia’s (maybe the world’s?) first ever National Action Plan for Endometriosis 😆😆 just launched by Greg Hunt MP .
A few months ago I was sitting at the Roundtable Meeting in Melbourne with 40 other experts in the field of endo, sharing all your stories, your wants, your needs, what WOMEN AND GIRLS WITH ENDO want and need, and all my ideas for solutions to the enormous public health issue that is #endometriosis.
Although this article in Latte was from July 2015 – it was a great awareness piece on endometriosis. A huge thanks to Business Chicks for featuring EndoActive and providing important health information about endo.
Click through to read the full article.
EndoActive’s Co-founder, Syl Freedman has been named as one of 8 Young Leaders in the 100 Women of Influence Awards, sponsored by the Australian Financial Review and Westpac. The awards are designed to increase the visibility of women’s leadership and highlight the important contribution women make in creating a bold and diverse future for Australia.
Hey EndoActivists / bloggies,
Last week I was invited to write a column for The Guardian. What a privilege and a milestone. The Guardian is a prestigious, highly respected publication with gravitas. On New Year’s Eve 2015 they published an article about me, which was a great honour. But to be asked to write for them and comment on an important research paper about a topic I’ve become so passionate about is an entirely different feeling.
On the Guardian it has had over 6526 shares. Our post reach in the past fortnight has been insane – over 80,000 organically.
It also made history by being the first article I’ve written to make it into my own Google Alert!
Dear CNN, Nadia Kounang and Dr Scott Sullivan,
Yesterday my absolute hero, Lena Dunham, did something incredible for Endometriosis. She got the world talking about it. Dunham announced that she’s been forced to pull out of the promo tour for her hit TV series GIRLS due to an Endo flare-up. I was heartbroken for Lena. But, as the Co-founder of EndoActive – an Endometriosis Activism Group – I was grateful and proud that she had shared this information on social media and thrilled that the media had picked up on it. Any publicity for Endo is good publicity, right? Wrong.
I am absolutely horrified by what you, CNN, have published. You had not only an opportunity to report on an under-publicised, insidious disease that is destroying lives and desperately needs to be taken seriously, needs attention and needs funding but you had a responsibility to report factual, evidence-based research supported by compassion, care and a positive message. To my horror and the horror of the thousands of women I represent, you have grossly missed the mark and published instead an unsavoury, chauvinistic, factually incorrect, medically and morally irresponsible piece of writing that helps no one and in fact undoes so much of the hard work that EndoActive and so many others are doing daily.
Felt very humbled to be nominated alongside this girl – Katrina Keshishian, Cosmo’s Game changer of the year winner. Katrina is a Campaigner for rape victim compensation – what a legend. Huge inspiration that you can go through hell and come out the other side strong, fearless and courageous. Congratulations Katrina ! Xx
EndoActive’s DVD on Endometriosis is now available from endoactive.org.au
SO ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY!
I so wish I had a resource like this available to me when I was in the throes of despair – not knowing who to turn to for advice after I’d had a million doctor and specialist appointments with no clear answers as to why I was still in pain after 2 surgeries and what I could do to help myself…
I am comin’ at you live from beneath the Pandanus. Although I’m currently in Noosa on holidays with my family, EndoActive HQ has traveled with us and is fully functioning in the tropics. We’ve literally gone troppo. So much exciting news to tell you so be sure to read to the bottom ok! First things first. Happy new year err’body. I hope this finds you well. It’s been so hectic up here organising the inaugural EndoActive consumer conference (eeee!!!) and getting in touch with lots of brave, enthusiastic EndoActive supporters from Brisbane & the Sunshine Coast who we’re going to interview and film while we’re up here. On top of that, A Current Affair popped in to see us. They were lovely. We ate Tim Tams together! I’ll tell you about that further down.
For those of you who aren’t aware, my Mum and I started EndoActive Australia & NZ a few months ago as a result of the publicity we were receiving after our petition on change.org went viral and received a whopping 74,500 signatures. You can check it out here. Now we are a non-profit, legally incorporated association which feels FANTASTIC and sounds very grown up and legit. We are so proud to have started this little thing from our living room and watched it grow and grow. Our mission is to promote education, awareness and activism about Endo as much as we can. We’ve already achieved a lot with the help of our fantastic supporters and have lots of exciting things in the pipeline. Mum has ideas coming out of her eyeballs, even while she’s asleep! She is an absolute powerhouse and I’m learning a lot. Together, we make a great team. We are currently planning the first ever consumer conference on Endo to be held in Sydney in the first half of 2015.
I took this photo while I was perving on all the sparkly spangly things at my photo shoot for Cosmo on October 14. Sadly none of them were meant for me so I just drooled and fantasised about being a modern bridal-wear model dripping in sequins and fluffed with fur coats while I sat on the couch waiting until it was my go. (There was a real model before me which pissed me off royally because I knew I’d look like even more of a dick trying incredibly hard to look totally natural. Bitch.)
Time for makeup. I was very excited to see what I’d be styled in and how many different outfits I’d get to try which is hilarious in hindsight because I was given a plain white singlet to throw on for a single head-shot. What a dick. Thinking I was gonna get some sort of fashion spread like I was Kate bloody Moss or something HA! I’m still baffled by my unbridled self-indulgence in that moment – what on earth was I thinking? As I had one squinty eye on the model pose pose posing while my hot pink lippy was applied and my eyebrows were coloured in, I watched my glossy 6-page-spread vision droop and deflate like a sad penis on a cold day.
