About Us

Pro­mot­ing equi­ty across our sec­tor to empow­er all women to embrace their strengths.

OUR MIS­SION

In col­lab­o­ra­tion with indi­vid­u­als, com­mu­ni­ties and emer­gency ser­vices, we build con­fi­dence and empow­er women to achieve their full poten­tial and be sup­port­ed, as women, in their roles with­in our sector.

OBJEC­TIVES

The objec­tives of WAFA are:

1. To facil­i­tate and sup­port women in tak­ing an active role in defin­ing and shap­ing the role of women in the fire­fight­ing and emer­gency ser­vices indus­tries by pro­mot­ing the expec­ta­tions of and con­tri­bu­tion by women to the sector.
2. To pro­vide a vehi­cle for women, in con­junc­tion with their col­leagues in the indus­try, to:

• fos­ter and pro­mote increased under­stand­ing and aware­ness of the con­tri­bu­tion and capa­bil­i­ties that women bring to the fire­fight­ing and emer­gency man­age­ment sector;
• cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for frank exchange and dis­cus­sion of the chal­lenges, issues and oppor­tu­ni­ties for women in the sector;
• facil­i­tate change through solu­tions and actions coop­er­a­tive­ly devel­oped with our col­leagues in the sec­tor; and
• gen­er­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for the devel­op­ment of knowl­edge and prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence in roles of lead­er­ship and management.

HIS­TO­RY

In 2005, the inau­gur­al Aus­tralasian Women in Fire­fight­ing Forum (WIFF 2005) was held at the Hol­i­day Inn, Syd­ney Airport.

Three res­o­lu­tions were made at this Forum:

1. A report on the Forum was to be pre­sent­ed to the Aus­tralasian Fire and Emer­gency Ser­vices Author­i­ties Coun­cil (AFAC) — com­plet­ed in 2006;
2. Anoth­er Con­fer­ence was to be held — Women in Fire­fight­ing 2006 was held at Dar­ling Har­bour in Syd­ney in June 2006; and
3. A pro­fes­sion­al asso­ci­a­tion was to be estab­lished for women in the Aus­tralasian fire­fight­ing industry.

Con­se­quent­ly, Women and Fire­fight­ing Aus­trala­sia (WAFA) was incor­po­rat­ed in Novem­ber 2007. Since that time WAFA has been steadi­ly work­ing to pro­mote women in fire­fight­ing by work­ing with organ­i­sa­tions, fire ser­vices and indi­vid­ual mem­bers.
WAFA has expe­ri­ence run­ning sev­er­al high­ly suc­cess­ful con­fer­ences since the inau­gur­al Women in Fire­fight­ing forum in Syd­ney in 2005. Since then con­fer­ences have been held in Dar­ling Har­bour, the Yarra Val­ley, Ade­laide, Can­ber­ra, and most recent­ly in Bris­bane in 2016.