SUNITA Kotnala came to Canberra from Sydney in early 2020, just as COVID-19 isolation was beginning to impact her.

“I was just feeling very alone, I’m sure many people were,” she says.

“I had been part of a women’s shed in Sydney, and I remember thinking I wished there was one here in Canberra.

“I mentioned it to my friend, Robby McGreevy, and she was all for it, and that’s how the Womens Shed Canberra was founded on September 25.”

Their first step was finding a place to set up and store tools, and Sunita knew they had shared values with Thor’s Hammer in Griffith.

“I had visited the business to buy recycled timber and was aware of the commitment to reducing their environmental footprint,” she says.

“There is an alignment of values with us in terms of working towards sustainability, recycling and upcycling.”

Sunita and Robby suggested weekday evenings, but settled on Saturday mornings.

“Thor gives us this space free of cost, yeah, and he gives us two work tables to work on,” says Sunita.

“Then, a new shed and facility was opening in Hughes under COTA, and we got invited to rent the space once a week.

“It was a great opportunity to run the service from a new location, and we are at the Hughes Community Shed every Tuesday from 9.30am to 1pm.”

Now, three years after the shed began, they have launched a third initiative.

“We now have a mobile shed,” she says.

“We acquired funding through a grant and were given $14,000, so we bought a van and filled it with tools and put signage on it, and we soft launched it at Barnardos Youth Services in Braddon.

“The plan now is to take the van to groups who are interested but unable to attend our usual settings because they have life issues or transport issues.

“So we’ll take the van somewhere, just for three or four hours one day, and people can bring their projects to work on and use the tools in the van.”

Sunita says the Womens Shed Canberra members work on a variety of projects, but most require some woodwork.

“We’ve had members come in to build a whole table, reupholster a dining chair, to just fixing their insect screen,” she says.

“But we also run some more focused sessions where professional tradespeople come in to supervise and teach us how to change washers on leaking taps, or just how to use the power equipment.

“We are a women’s shed, but sometimes our qualified guides are men, because there are just so many of them, and women are the minority. 

“We call these skills ‘handy person’ skills, because we have to rely on a male friend or relative to come and fix things for us.

“But, by actually having these basic skills, we don’t have to rely on anyone to fix it just because now we know what to do.”

She says often if someone has never used power tools before they can be a bit wary, so she’s glad she’s created a space that teaches people and helps them feel confident and comfortable.

And, the Womens Shed Canberra has become quite the welcoming community.

“Everyone is always talking and laughing with each other, you can just hear the community bonding,” she says.

“People have definitely found friendships, people have found support with each other and it’s cohesive. We are non-discriminatory, a space where women of all ethnicities, backgrounds, sexual orientation can come to be included.”

With a regular 50 members attending the Womens Shed Canberra, Sunita has big plans for the future, too.

“For the future, it’d be great to get a permanent place of our own, to store our members’ projects so they don’t have to transport them back and forth to every session,” she says.

“Having said that, not having a permanent place yet has actually allowed us to explore different places and get an understanding of what people might like and require.

“I’m so immensely proud, it has just grown beyond my dreams.”

womensshedcanberra.com.au