The Ednas
1998 - 202325 years of celebrating women making a feminist difference
The Edna Ryan Awards celebrateD women who contribute to improving the lives of womEn and girls
Women who persist, strive, advocate and fight to make a feminist difference.
Women who are often unsung and unrecognised.
The Edna Ryan Awards are named in honour of a woman who fought valiantly for equal pay and equal rights for women.
The Older Women’s Network NSW is very proud to have convened the award for its final 3 years and will continue to host this website for the foreseeable future.
Even though the EDNAS has come to an end, the fight for women’s and girls’ rights continues!
“Only when a society values distributive justice and multi-vocality, will the voices of its entire people be free. Only then will it be safe for each of us to add our narrative to the dominant social and political discourse. Only then will our country be equipped to engage in a fair and diverse feminist debate which has the potential to empower all.”
“I have always known that as a woman I would need to work harder than my male counterparts to be seen as an equal, and I have made it my life’s work to do just that. It is important that we show the future generations of women that we can forge success in the face of oppression and sexism. We need to always remember that we are valuable, powerful, and we should never doubt ourselves.”
Erin Wen Ai Chew
Entrepeneur, social activist, founder of the Asian Australian Alliance
Past AWARd recipients
Sam Mostyn | 2023 Grand Stirrer
Sam Mostyn is the 2023 recipient of the Grand Stirrer Award. She has been a trailblazer in advancing the status and opportunities for women in Australia.
Meg Smith | For Making a Feminist Difference in Workforce
Meg Smith is the 2023 recipient of the Making a Feminist Difference in Workforce award. She has made an outstanding contribution to the quest for pay equity for Australian women.
Pilar Lopez | For Making a Feminist Difference in Mentoring
Pilar Lopez is the 2023 recipient of the Making a Feminist Difference in Mentoring award. Her unwavering commitment to women’s empowerment, diversity, inclusion, and gender equality is truly commendable.
Sarah Rosenberg | For Making a Feminist Difference in Community Activism
Sarah Rosenberg is the 2023 recipient of the Making a Feminist Difference in Community Activism award. She created the “With You We Can” resource, as she navigated the deepest trauma of her life. This resource sprung from a commitment to ensure others would not experience what she had.
Audrey Mims | For Making a Feminist Difference in Community Activism
Audrey Mims is the recipient of the Making a Feminist Difference in Community Activism award. She currently serves as the Chair of The STOP Campaign Board a grassroots not-for-profit feminist organisation working to prevent sexual violence in Australian tertiary learning communities through activism, empowerment, education, and awareness.
Daphne Lowe Kelly | For Making a Feminist Difference in Mentoring
Daphne Lowe Kelly is the 2023 recipient for Making a Feminist Difference in Mentoring. She has worked tirelessly toward ensuring the participation and recognition of Chinese Australians, mentoring Chinese Australian women and elevating their voices.
Chrystina Stanford | For Making a Feminist Difference in Leadership
Chrystina Stanford is the 2023 recipient of the Making a Feminist Difference in Leadership award. She speaks and advocates for women who are oppressed sexually, socially, culturally, and economically.
Eezu Tan | For Making a Feminist Difference in Community Activism
Eezu Tan is the 2023 recipient of the For Making a Feminist Difference in Community Activism award. Together with Marlene Baquiran, they have improved the status of women through their climate letter-writing group.
Marlene Baquiran | For Making a Feminist Difference in Community Activism
Marlene Baquiran is the 2023 recipient of the For Making a Feminist Difference in Community Activism award. Together with Eezu Tan, they have improved the status of women through their climate letter-writing group.
Vanessa Donald-Smith | For Making a Feminist Difference in Mentoring
Vanessa Donald-Smith is the 2023 recipient of the Making a Feminist Difference in Mentoring award. Throughout her 30-year employment at DV West (formerly West Connect DV Services), Vanessa has supported thousands of women and children escaping and experiencing domestic and family violence.
Anne Junor | For Making a Feminist Difference in Workforce
Anne Junor is the 2023 recipient of the Making a Feminist Difference in Workforce award. Her work has made a feminist difference to women by contributing to improved practical outcomes for women working in areas where their skills are critical to effective performance of their jobs in providing care for others.
Ginger Gorman | For Making a Feminist Difference in Media Communication
Ginger Gorman is the 2023 recipient of the Making a Feminist Difference in Media Communication award. She is a Canberra-based award-winning social justice and investigative journalist and author of the best-selling 2019 book ‘Troll Hunting: Inside the world of online hate and its human fallout.’
Deborah Cheetham Fraillon | For Making a Feminist Difference in Arts
Deborah Cheetham Fraillon is the 2023 recipient of the Making a Feminist Difference in Arts award. Deborah has been a long-time feminist activist. During her very successful classical musical career, she has championed the cause of women, in particular Indigenous women.
Bree van Reyk | For Making a Feminist Difference in Arts
Bree van Reyk is the recipient of the 2023 Making a Feminist Difference in Arts award. She is a percussionist, composer, sound artist, educator, and activist who passionately advocates for gender equity and social justice through extraordinary artistic projects that mobilise communities and inspire change.
Neelima Kadiyala | For Making a Feminist Difference in Workforce
Neelima Kadiyala is the 2023 recipient for Making a Feminist Difference in Workforce. Neelima takes an active role in promoting STEM careers, predominantly technology careers.
Shirley Randell | For Making a Feminist Difference in Mentoring
Professor Shirley Randell is the 2023 recipient for Making a Feminist Difference in Mentoring. She is an award-winning global mentor, educator, author, public speaker, change activist, and campaigner for human rights for the improvement of the status of women.
Kristine Hewett | For Making a Feminist Difference in Community Activism
Kristine Hewett is the 2023 recipient for Making a Feminist Difference in Community Activism. She set up and runs Adamas Nexus post-crisis domestic violence support groups for women who have been subjected to violence, abuse or intimidation.
Chanel Contos | Grand Stirrer
Chanel Contos is an Australian student and sexual consent activist. She became known globally in 2021, following the responses to her request for young Australian women to report on their sexual assault experiences.
Amanda Rose | For Making a Feminist Difference in Leadership
Amanda Rose is the Founding Director of ‘Western Sydney Women’, the first and only organisation to advocate for ALL women from the Inner West, Greater West, North West and South West of Sydney.
Annie Crowe | For Making a Feminist Difference in Community Activism
Annie Crowe is a tireless advocate for neurodivergent women in Australia. She founded and is the Chair of the Board for the not-for-profit, Eating Disorders Neurodiversity Australia (EDNA).
Brenda Gaddi | For Making a Feminist Difference in Leadership
Brenda Vertudes Gaddi (she/her), is a first-generation migrant/settler from Manila, Philippines, who has been building women-focused communities and championing women’s voices for over a decade.
Janice Paulson | For Making a Feminist Difference in Mentoring
Janice Paulson is a proud 76 year old Worimi woman who has dedicated her working life and now her retirement years, to the empowerment of women and girls.
Jenny Leong | For Making a Feminist Difference in Leadership
Jenny Leong was first elected to the NSW Parliament in 2015 and was the first Chinese-Australian woman in Australia to secure a Lower House seat.
Julia Zemiro | For Making a Feminist Difference in Media Communication
Julia Zemiro has been an extraordinary role model and mentor for women across a wide variety of media roles, including stand-up comedy and improvisation, both of which are male dominated fields.
Licia Heath | For Making a Feminist Difference in Political Activism
Licia Heath is the CEO of ‘Women for Election’ Australia (WFE), a non-partisan, not-for-profit organisation that has trained and supported thousands of women from various backgrounds and lived experiences to stand for public office.
Louise Hislop | For Making a Feminist Difference in Political Activism
Louise Hislop has worked to create a more representative, diverse, and feminist parliament.
Lorraine Usher | For Making a Feminist Difference in Mentoring
Lorraine Usher is a past President of the Mining & Energy union, and was a founding member of ‘Women in Male-Dominated Occupations and Industries’ (WiMDOI).
Maha Abdo | For Making a Feminist Difference in Community Activism
Maha Krayem Abdo is a passionate advocate for social justice. She serves as the CEO of ‘Muslim Women Australia'(MWA), a representative body for Muslim women advocating for equality and the rights of all women, through authentic leadership based on Islamic principles.
Malaika Mfula | For Making a Feminist Difference in Leadership
Malaika Mfula, alongside Rizina Yadav, cofounded ‘Her Future Her Decade’ a social impact organisation that aims to support and empower young women during the critical decade of 18 to 28 years old when young women make decisions that alter their career advancement, economic security, and happiness.
Rizina Yadav | For Making a Feminist Difference in Leadership
Rizina Yadav, alongside Malaika Mfula, cofounded ‘Her Future Her Decade’ a social impact organisation that aims to support and empower young women during the critical decade of 18 to 28 years old when young women make decisions that alter their career advancement, economic security, and happiness.
“Pinch me, it’s a miracle handed out on my birthday. It could have been decided years and years ago. We’d given up hope, and now, bang, here it is in writing,”
– Edna Ryan, aged 68, writing in her diary after the National Wage Case decision in 1972 that gave one and a half million women equal pay with men.
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Older Women’s Network NSW
8-10 Victoria Street,
Newtown NSW 2042, Australia.
+61 – 2 – 9519 8044
We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we work and live, and we pay our respects to Elders past and present.
We acknowledge the sorrow of the Stolen Generations and the impacts of colonisation on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Edna Ryan Awards supports the Uluru Statement from the Heart, the call for a First Nation's Voice enshrined in the Australian Constitution and a Makarrata Commission to oversee agreement-making and truth-telling.