The inaugural Dubbo Women’s Festival — International Women’s Day, Friday 8 March 2024, Western Plains Cultural Centre. Free, all day, built around the seasons of a woman’s life.

Who she is

Dr. Pethidia Mango, is an experienced GP who specialises in sexual and women’s health. Graduating from the University of Zimbabwe Medical School in 2003, she migrated to Australia in 2007, embarking on her medical career in Alice Springs and the Central Coast before settling in Dubbo in 2011. Becoming a fellow of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners in 2013, she dedicated over five years to Family Planning NSW Dubbo Clinic, honing her expertise in women’s health. Dr. Mango’s commitment to rural medicine led her to contribute to a successful women’s health outreach initiative by the RFDS in Gilgandra for the past five years. Dr Mango finds joy in cooking and baking alongside her medical practice.

The panel she sat on

Panel 2 — 1.00pm. Pitched to women further along, this one took on perimenopause and menopause — physical and mental health through a stage of life that tends to get handled in whispers, and practical ways to manage wellbeing through it and beyond.

Dr Mango was the right person for that room. A fellow of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, more than five years with Family Planning NSW’s Dubbo clinic, and five years contributing to the RFDS women’s health outreach at Gilgandra — which means she has had this conversation with women who live a long way from anywhere.

She returned for the festival’s later panels too, where the questions got more specific: what’s normal, what isn’t, and when to stop putting up with something. Menopause is only diagnosed in retrospect — after twelve months without a period. If you bleed after that, see a doctor immediately.

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The day around the panels

The panels sat inside a free, all-day program built on one idea: make it as easy as possible for a woman to turn up. Free admission. Childcare. A dedicated space for mothers and children. Free lunch on the lawn. Transport for groups who’d otherwise not make it. An early breakfast session so women could come before work.

On the day, women had cervical screening and booked breast screening appointments. They sat in on panels about their own bodies. They took ten minutes in the Moment Lounge. They sang with Cam’s Choir. The festival was delivered by Sharon Quill, Joanne Phillips and Lorna Brennan, with more than forty partner organisations behind it.

The Women’s Festivals →  |  The first believers who backed it →