This has been the call of my life

Your Excellency, Honorable guests and all present, thank you. Expecting and Parenting teens – tonight is for us, you look beautiful and handsome, thankyou to TasTafe for doing hair and make up and Tagari Lia for transporting many of you here.

This has been the call of my life.

A very wise man, Rev Tim Costello, who is here tonight, said to me a few months ago, Bernie have you counted the cost, the grief and celebration of living the Brave journey? I asked myself these questions, perhaps for the first time in my life – could I comprehend, reflect and accept the actuality of this dream, that this reality of what I looked for and couldn’t find is real. Today we have 17 E&PT’s in front of us, representing 230 nationally, with our 10 Brave Mentors hailing from all over our great nation, whom I couldn’t be prouder of for being the essence of who Brave is.

To my family; Steve, Daim, Bae, Flynn and Bec - you didn’t choose this life call, although you have chosen to love and champion me everyday as I have walked this out. Together we have cried, grieved at the cost, not had money, and celebrated wildly. I can tell everyone in the room today, that being an E&PT attracts much stigma, so spearheading the only national organisation that exists to support women like us to have access to support and education, changing the culture of a nation, has meant sometimes standing in front of what’s felt like a gale force wind that is brutal. But then – but then – there is the village. Mine is my family, you were with me when I made the first phone call to help a young mum join a mum’s group in QLD in 2007, you were there the year before when we launched my story and experience of teenage parenthood, BLB. Daim, you created this story 26 years ago. It has not been easy, it has not been a job, its been a way of life for my family and I – that you’ve loved me enough to see this today, I am eternally grateful, we all are.

To my board, former Directors, to Gary my Chair – I can’t invent a word to show you my gratitude, thank you for being courageous, for taking me to task and building this together. My head office team, my brave family – you make it a delight to go to work every day, thank you Lu the chief cheer leader and gate keeper, Elaine our ray of sunshine and good steward of every financial transaction and Amanda, for helping us build a rich legacy with our capacity and processes. Alicia and Alli, we wrote that 380-page strategy for Australia – we created this together, from home offices to where we stand today - for such rich good. Can you believe it, it has been an honour and true joy leading alongside you both!

Tonight, as we celebrate Brave’s 10-year anniversary, I see a chapter that is beyond this dream and many prayers. Yes, Brave’s story has started with me telling me my own, a story that now will return to its precious place of significance privately to me. If we use the analogy of a book, today I see us standing on the full stop of the last word of an introduction, as we turn a page, we will see that the rest of the story of Brave is about these young women and men that stand in front of us today, it is about you – Tahleh, Ali, Ashley B, Lisa, Courtney, Georgia, Chloe , Kayla, Ashley G, Tegan, Beth, Tori-Jane , Nicole, Jacinta, Sophie (plus her 1 year old Kyton) , Bo and Lily

Not only will there be chapters about these young people, but on how much our nation will learn from Brave, our strategy and impact as we strengthen and gain momentum into the future. I am so filled with vision as we apprehend that. So, for now, at this 10-year juncture – thankyou to each of you. There has been purpose behind every invitation sent out for this event, you standing here have supported BRAVE - in the small and the big, I believe that “When you can be trusted with the little, you can be trusted with much” often the little, no one can see and when we all play our part in small and genuine ways, we can be trusted with much – this is the outcome. This is the world of BRAVE. Happy 10-year anniversary.