International Women’s Day #BeBoldForChange
;
;

International Women’s Day #BeBoldForChange

International Women’s Day celebrates the social, economic, cultural and political achievement of women. This year, the theme is #BeBoldForChange.

To celebrate this important day, our Old Grammarians held a breakfast with guest speaker Emma Grant (Rickards, 1991), educator, former professional road cyclist and Australian national champion rower.

Since graduating from Melbourne Girls Grammar in 1991, sport and education have been central to Emma’s career. Leaving her role in education as a Physical Education/Science Teacher and Assistant Director of Rowing, Emma’s focus remained on her career as an elite athlete where she achieved victory across multiple State and National Rowing Championships.

After injury ended Emma’s rowing career in 1998, she made a bold decision to move abroad where she pursued her love for cycling. She excelled in the sport, and among her cycling achievements, she competed as an Australian National Team member and was appointed Director of a top US Women’s Professional Cycling Team.

Since retiring from cycling, Emma returned to Australia and undertook a National Manager role at Cycling Australia and has continued her studies, most recently completing her Master of Education (Student Wellbeing) at the University of Melbourne.

Emma says that there some significant events in her life that forced her to #BeBoldForChange, and each taught her that coping with each and coming out the other side will occur if three vital elements are present:

  1. Positive support structure surrounding you and knowing you are not alone
  2. Making sure that you are in a safe place to try and fail – knowing that you won’t fall and will learn from the experience to move forward
  3. To never forgot who you are and the core values you embrace

Emma is a mum of two energetic boys and this year returned to Melbourne Girls Grammar as a Wellbeing Coach, where she says, “I wholeheartedly believe in being vigilantly proactive around the importance of wellbeing rather than being reactive or even passive. My desire is for each student here at MGGS to believe in the beauty of their dreams.”