Our Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, Victoria Black talks unleashing the potential of Australian women to make a difference in the world.
Victoria Black is our fearless leader: the Founder of Wildfire Publishing, responsible for creating Australia’s leading wedding magazines and websites including Modern Wedding, Luxury Weddings and Sydney Wedding.
Victoria is passionate about celebrating love and isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty in order to help others.
According to Victoria, “true happiness doesn’t come from what we get, but from what we give,” and that’s why Victoria is dedicated to empowering women through Unleashed Women: a female-led movement to end world hunger by 2030.
We sat down with Victoria to talk about how she is using her position of influence in the wedding industry to change the lives of women globally.
What do you love about the wedding industry?
I was thinking about the wedding industry and in particular, why we do what we do. There’s a pretty big reason – together we combine all our talents and tremendous passion to create the most magical day for couples to share their love with their nearest and dearest. Your wedding day should be one of the happiest, most important days of your life and we’re the people who make that happen. Together our industry creates phenomenal life celebrations.
That’s a true honour. A wonderful purpose.
You talk a lot about collaboration in the wedding industry, why do you feel this is so important?
Competition between us makes us faster but collaboration makes us better. I believe there is a tremendous spirit of collaboration in our industry and the more we can foster this spirit the more successful we will ALL be…plus we’ll enjoy it more!
Mother Theresa once said: “You can do things that I cannot do. I can do things that you cannot do. Together we can do great things.”
I’m a big believer in collaborating in all areas of life. When we work together we can achieve amazing results.
How does that spirit of togetherness influence what you do for Unleashed Women?
I’m delighted to be an Ambassador for Unleashed Women a powerful global movement empowering women to end hunger. Empowering women is a cause close to my heart. I know that when women are supported and enabled, they make big things happen!
This September, the goal is to raise $200,000 to reach 160,000 women in Africa, India and Bangladesh so they can end hunger and poverty in their communities.
True happiness doesn’t come from what we get, but from what we give. So I want to encourage people to come together to give generously to those less fortunate.
What inspired you to make a change with Unleashed Women?
When I was a little girl, we were often confronted by images of starving children in Africa on the television – these images were imprinted on my brain and I was so moved that I would go door to door by myself to collect money for them. You don’t see those images so much nowadays and one could be forgiven for thinking the problem isn’t really that bad anymore…but sadly it is.
It is completely unacceptable that while we enjoy such an over-abundance of food, especially in the wedding industry, there are still many millions that do not have enough to eat.
795 million people in the world will go to bed chronically hungry: that’s one in every nine people.
What message would you want to share with people reading this interview?
As Marianne Williamson said: “Our biggest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our biggest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”
Our playing it small doesn’t serve the world any purpose. When we allow ourselves to shine we allow others to shine too.
Every single dollar counts – for example, $25 could educate 20 mothers about locally available nutritious food they can feed their babies and prevent malnutrition.
So Let us be bold. Let us be brave. Let us be together.
For more information, visit Unleashed Women’s website. To join us in donating, head over to the fundraising page!
