The Maybanke Fund was started by the Chair of the SCF, Rosalind Maybanke Strong and honours her great great aunt, women’s advocate and social reformer, Maybanke Selfe Wolstenholme Anderson.
Known in the family as May, Maybanke Anderson played an active role in the promotion of women’s and children’s rights. She was a leader in the women’s suffrage movement, and worked for Federation. She was first vice president of the Women’s Literary Society (WLS) and then president during the vital years from 1893 until 1897. The WLS was the origin of the Womanhood Suffrage League of New South Wales. In 1893 Maybanke founded the Australasian Home Reading Union - a program to promote education by organising small study groups in rural areas.
Always, for Maybanke, the vote was 'the kernel of all reform'. In 1894 Maybanke began publishing the fortnightly newspaper The Women’s Voice. The paper covered issues of women’s rights and suffrage at the national and international level. In 1895 she established the first free kindergarten in Australia pioneering the kindergarten movement helping the children of the inner city and their working mothers.
The Maybanke subfund will support causes across the range of Maybanke’s work, and initially will focus on reducing inequalities in early childhood education. We are looking forward to researching and making grants to organisations working in this area.
You can read more about Maybanke Anderson in the Dictionary of Sydney at http://www.dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/anderson_maybanke
If you would like to make a donation to the Maybanke subfund of the Sydney Community Foundation, please click here for a donation form, or if you are interested in creating your own subfund focussing on one of your own passions, please contact Kristi Mansfield, Executive Director, on 9251 1228 or by email at kristi.mansfield@sydneycommunityfoundation.org.au. More information on creating a subfund with the SCF can be found on our website by clicking here.
