Tag: Brisbane North

Ausbuild and Zonta Use Dolphins Season Opener to Spotlight Domestic Violence Awareness in Redcliffe

Zonta Club of Redcliffe Inc./Facebook

Seventy members and supporters of the Zonta Club of Redcliffe joined the sold-out season opener at Kayo Stadium last week, with Ausbuild‘s community partnership with the Dolphins providing the platform for a domestic and family violence awareness push ahead of a busy advocacy month.

Read: Redcliffe Organisations Included In Ausbuild Dolphins 2026 Community Partner Program

The match, which saw the Dolphins suffer a tough loss to the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles in their first home game of 2026, gave Zonta a visibility it rarely gets in a mainstream sporting setting. Members took part in the guard of honour as the teams ran out and appeared in a pre-game interview on the big screen, reaching an audience well beyond the organisation’s usual reach and helping build momentum ahead of Domestic and Family Violence Prevention Month in May.

For Zonta Club of Redcliffe President Marie Stewart, that kind of mainstream exposure is exactly the point.

“Even though it wasn’t a great game for the Dolphins, it was a great game for awareness and visibility for Zonta and what we stand for,” she said.

Sport as a Platform for Change

Marie has been involved with Zonta for 19 years and understands better than most that raising awareness of domestic and family violence requires meeting communities where they already are. A rugby league crowd at Kayo Stadium, many of them families, represents precisely the kind of broad and varied audience that can be difficult to reach through traditional advocacy channels.

Ausbuild and Zonta Use Dolphins Season Opener to Spotlight Domestic Violence Awareness in Redcliffe
Photo Credit: Zonta Club of Redcliffe Inc./Facebook

The Zonta Club of Redcliffe has deep roots on the Peninsula, drawing passionate members from across the Redcliffe, North Lakes, and Mango Hill bayside communities. It is part of Zonta International, a global organisation active in more than 60 countries, focused on advancing the rights and status of women and girls through advocacy, education and direct community action. Locally, the club has a long track record of Dolphins partnerships, including previous Respect Round activations at Kayo Stadium and domestic violence awareness content on the big screen at football games.

The argument for taking that message into sporting venues is clear to Marie, and it centres on young people watching from the stands.

“Little kids look up to sporting heroes, and they have to be good examples,” she said. “If we can work with sports like rugby league, those role models can help reinforce positive behaviour, especially for kids who may not see that at home.”

Ausbuild’s Community Partnership at Work

Ausbuild drove the initiative through its role as the Dolphins’ official Community Partner, a partnership now in its fourth year that has distributed more than $100,000 worth of tickets to community groups and charities across the Moreton Bay region since its 2022 launch.

Photo Credit: Zonta Club of Redcliffe Inc./Facebook

Each home game, Ausbuild selects a local organisation to receive tickets and a game-day experience, including the guard of honour and big-screen feature that Zonta took part in last week. Ausbuild Joint Managing Director Matthew Bell said the structure of the partnership is designed to do exactly what it did for Zonta: give organisations a rare moment of visibility in front of a large, engaged crowd.

“As Community Partner of the Dolphins, we are privileged to connect with the local community and raise awareness for organisations such as Zonta Club of Redcliffe,” he said. “They play a vital role in supporting awareness for important issues like domestic and family violence.”

Zonta is the third organisation supported through the program in the 2026 season, alongside Undurba State School and Northern Districts Hack and Dressage Club.

What Comes Next

The Kayo Stadium appearance kicks off a month of high-impact advocacy for the club. The Zonta Club of Redcliffe is gearing up for a concentrated period of advocacy across May, including participation in the Moreton Bay Says No to Domestic Violence walk in Redcliffe on Friday, 26 May. The walk, which has run annually on the last Friday of May for more than a decade, brings together individuals, businesses and community organisations to march through the Redcliffe CBD to Settlement Cove Amphitheatre in a public stand against family and domestic violence.

Community groups and organisations across the Moreton Bay region interested in Ausbuild’s 2026 Community Partner program can find out more at ausbuild.com.au. For more information about the Zonta Club of Redcliffe and its upcoming advocacy activities, visit zontaredcliffe.org.au.

Read: Dolphins and Ausbuild Support Young Fan Through Redcliffe Hospital Initiative

Published 20-April-2026

Redcliffe’s Miracle Mums Movement Secures $150,000 to Expand Peer Wellness Workshops Across Moreton Bay

Miracle Mums Movement Inc./Facebook

The Miracle Mums Movement Inc., a survivor-led registered charity based in Redcliffe, has secured $150,000 in funding to deliver a 12-month Women’s Wellbeing Program of peer wellness workshops for women across the Moreton Bay region who have experienced domestic and family violence.

Read: Chameleon Youth Housing Calls on Redcliffe Community to Sleep on the Couch for a Cause

The funding enables the charity to expand its existing workshop model into a structured, ongoing program offering regular community spaces where women can access peer support, develop emotional resilience tools, rebuild self-esteem and form the social connections that research consistently identifies as critical to long-term recovery. For a region where domestic and family violence remains one of the most pressing community safety issues, the investment in a locally embedded, survivor-led support model addresses a gap that crisis services alone cannot fill.

Built From Lived Experience

Lou Feltham Smith, a Redcliffe-based survivor, founded the Miracle Mums Movement on a clear conviction: women who survive abuse deserve more than crisis support. They deserve the space to rebuild, reconnect with themselves and create the life they want.

That founding philosophy shapes everything about how the charity operates. Survivors who have transformed their own lives make up the Miracle Mums Movement team and now support others on their journey. The peer model places women with lived experience at the centre of the support process rather than positioning them purely as recipients of professional services. As a registered charity, the organisation partners with qualified professionals and collaborates closely with other Queensland domestic violence services to offer the most comprehensive support and resources available.

The team delivers workshops on the Redcliffe Peninsula using proven self-development principles to foster personal growth and goal achievement. Each session covers different practical strategies for moving toward a better life, with the program structured around three interconnected stages: developing a clear vision for the future, building a concrete plan to pursue it, and implementing that plan with community support over time.

Why Peer Support Matters After Trauma

The design of the Women’s Wellbeing Program reflects a growing body of evidence about what works for survivors of domestic and family violence in the period after they leave an abusive relationship. Crisis services play an essential role in the immediate aftermath, but the journey of recovery extends well beyond that acute phase. Isolation, eroded self-worth, disrupted social networks and the psychological aftermath of prolonged abuse all require sustained, structured support over time.

Peer-based programs are particularly effective in this space because they reduce the social isolation that makes recovery harder and create communities of shared understanding that professional services cannot replicate in the same way. When a survivor’s support comes partly from people who have navigated the same terrain, the therapeutic effect extends beyond the content of any individual session into the relationship and connection itself.

Across Queensland, the number of domestic and family violence occurrences recorded annually nearly doubled between 2017-18 and 2022-23, with police receiving more than 171,000 reports and occurrences in 2023 alone. Behind every statistic is a person navigating the long process of rebuilding, and programs like the Miracle Mums Movement’s workshops exist precisely to support that process in a sustained, community-grounded way.

Support That Stays Close to Home in Moreton Bay

The Moreton Bay region carries a significant domestic and family violence caseload, with the Moreton Police District maintaining specialist co-located DFV support services and the Centre Against Domestic Abuse operating dedicated counselling and court support services from Redcliffe. The Miracle Mums Movement sits alongside those services as a complementary peer-based resource, extending support into the recovery phase rather than duplicating crisis response.

The Miracle Mums Movement is taking its proven Redcliffe model on the road. This $150,000 investment empowers the team to deliver workshops across the Moreton Bay region, breaking down geographic barriers for survivors in Caboolture, Strathpine, and North Lakes who need sustained recovery support close to home.

Women across the Moreton Bay region can submit an expression of interest at miraclemumsmovement.com to join the Miracle Mums Movement workshops and receive updates when enrolments open for the next round.

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic or family violence, DVConnect Womensline operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week at 1800 811 811. For Australia-wide support, 1800RESPECT is available at any time on 1800 737 732. In an emergency, call 000.

Read: Easter Extravaganza Returns to Redcliffe with Markets, Music and Fundraising

Published 27-March-2026.