A Life In Chapters From Portsmouth to Perth - resilience turned into purpose.
The Applecross Rotary Club meeting featured guest speaker Dawn Francis sharing her personal journey from a difficult childhood in Portsmouth to her current work in governance, risk, and compliance.
Dawn discussed her background growing up in social housing with alcoholic parents, her law degree in England, her move to Australia in 1998, and her extensive work in youth at risk services including running three youth intervention centers and fostering her son Daniel. She described her current consulting work and her involvement with the Spear Foundation's new Juvenile Justice Program (djeelya) addressing the over representation of Aboriginal young women in the justice system and the urgent need for culturally safe interventions.
Rotary will benefit greatly from Dawn choosing Rotary as her service home.
“I build the safety nets I never had — so the next person doesn't have to fall as far before someone reaches back.” - Dawn France
From Portsmouth to Perth, from a childhood marked by hardship to the boardroom, Dawn turns hard-won experience into governance, advocacy and service — for young people through WA PCYC, and for forgotten children a world away through Nakuru Hope. Her next chapter is Second Chapter: a community centre to help women rebuild their independence