AFLW star and women's rights advocate Darcy Vescio will return home to the North East next week to speak about gender equality.
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Having grown up in Markwood, just outside of Wangaratta, the 25-year-old footballer has become one of the most recognisable faces in the women's game.
She will be the guest speaker at the launch of the second year of Women's Health Goulburn North East's "respect and equality for all strategy".
It will be the first event for new WHGNE chief executive Amanda Kelly, who started in the job last week.
She said WHGNE had spent the past year introducing the strategy for organisations to look at the issue of gender equality and examine what they could do better.
The second phase will be helping those organisations take action to promote equality and reduce the factors that lead to violence against women.
They will attend the launch at Winton Wetlands on Wednesday and hear from Vescio, who will talk about growing up in a rural community and her pathway to elite sport.
"The actual launch itself is to recognise that the people in the room are aware that things need to be done and they have committed to that," Ms Kelly said.
"Partly it's an acknowledgement of that to say 'you're awesome' and rural Victoria understands that, like all of Australia, we've got work to do."
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North East councils and not-for-profit organisations have joined WHGNE as partners in the strategy.
Ms Kelly said she hoped they could work to change some of the language used in the workplace when it comes to women, update their organisation policies and take part more training.
She said Vescio would be able to articulate how a focus on prevention can work.
"When you're preventing something, your success is that nothing happens so it's really hard to measure it," she said.
"Darcy grew up in the area and she's dealt with a lot of the issues, she's very aware of them."
Vescio spoke as part of the Voices for Change campaign earlier this year, saying the AFLW competition could empower girls in their youth.
"We haven't seen the potential of so many women because they haven't been given the opportunity," she said.
"We haven't been in a world where women have been completely equal to men, so we don't know the potential there."
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