Welcome to Melbourne! Upon arrival, you will be met by your Infuse Program Leaders and will be given an introduction to your experiential learning program. Learn more about the week ahead and familiarise yourself with the itinerary.

This afternoon you will participate in a walking tour of Melbourne. This guided walking tour will help you to become more familiar with the Melbourne area. It will also visit important places that tell stories of events that have influenced social justice and freedoms for women in Australia.

This morning we will head to the beachside neighbourhood of St Kilda to visit the St Kilda Gatehouse. St Kilda Gatehouse is a charity organisation that provides support to women who may be experiencing hardship due to sexual exploitation, mental illness, addiction, poverty, domestic violence and social isolation. The Gatehouse provides a space of belonging and safety for these women as well as crisis care, clothing, toiletries, someone to talk to and a safe place to sleep.

In the morning, you will learn all about the work that St Kilda Gatehouse does when you sit down with one of their staff members for an educational Q&A session. Following your information session you will participate in a service learning project with the Gatehouse. You may find yourself helping out in one of their op shops or packaging toiletries and necessities for the women who utilise the service.

Following service, we will debrief as a group over a yummy lunch in St Kilda before making our way back to one of Melbourne’s many city parks for some games and activities.

Today we will make our way to East Melbourne, where our first stop will be a visit to the Her Place Museum. Her Place is a not-for-profit organisation that celebrates the social, civic and entrepreneurial achievements of all Australian women and their role in shaping our nation. You will have the opportunity to spend some time at the museum and walk through the different exhibitions.

This afternoon we will sit down with one of the staff members from the Victorian Women’s Trust. We will hear all about the work that the trust is doing to achieve full gender equality in Victoria and a world where women and girls take up all of life’s opportunities with respect, safety and dignity.

For the next 3 mornings, you will dive into experiential learning as you research, meet and interview women from a cross-section of society, to understand the significance of women in Australian society.

You will be given a list of women to choose from to interview. These women work in a variety of professions and come from a variety of different backgrounds. You will be given some background information about the women you choose to interview and you will be required to come up with questions you would like to ask them.

In the afternoons, you will participate in service projects with one or more of Infuse’s community partners. Your service projects will be determined by the needs of our partners at the time of your visit.

On the final afternoon and evening of day 6, you will spend time with your group debriefing and discussing the things about you have learnt over the past week. You will spend your final night enjoying a delicious final dinner together.

Today you will say goodbye to your Infuse Program Leaders before making the journey home.

We hope that this experiential learning program has opened your eyes to some of the issues that women face in society and how they overcome these challenges.