Who we are

Undercurrent is a nonprofit organisation focused on community education, building healthy relationships and challenging the attitudes, beliefs and actions that enable violence, with an emphasis on intimate partner/family violence, violence in LGBTIQ+ relationships, and gendered violence.

Based in the western suburbs of Melbourne, we are a diverse and experienced team of volunteers who run engaging, discussion based workshops with secondary schools, community groups, organisations, TAFEs/Vocational Education and universities, and for the public.

We develop and deliver comprehensive programs that cover healthy relationships, family violence and sexual assault, sex education, gender and sexuality, support and accountability, consent and communication. We center people who have experienced or are experiencing violence. Our project is informed by transformative justice and intersectional feminism.

Some of us are also individually involved in projects that facilitate community-based responses to family and sexual violence, using transformative justice frameworks to create alternative pathways to those leading to the criminal, legal and prison systems.

Our team:

Anne-lise Ah-fat

Anne-lise Ah-fat is a community organiser, mother of two, facilitator and educator who is passionate about transformative change and justice. She is a co-founder of Undercurrent Community Education Project and also co-directed its previous incarnation, A World Without Sexual Assault, from 2007. Anne-lise also works as therapeutic family violence practitioner with LGBTIQ+ peoples, a men's behaviour change practitioner, family violence consultant, counsellor, and trainer. Anne-lise is passionate about accountability, malleefowl and co-ordinates Incendium Radical Library, IRL prisoner letter writing group, Transformative Justice Podcast and IRL Infoshop. As an educator, Anne-lise works with persons of diverse cultural and economic backgrounds and believes that social change can only occur collectively.

Anita Thomasson

Anita has been a co-director of Undercurrent Community Education Project and its previous incarnation, A World Without Sexual Assault, since 2007. She worked and volunteered at McAuley Care Domestic Violence Crisis Accomodation and facilitated workshops with the South Eastern Centre Against Sexual Assault’s ‘Respect, Protect, Connect’ program for 3 years from 2011-2013. She is a radio presenter with 3CR community radio focusing on women’s issues and volunteers as a migration agent with a family and refugee support agency. She is passionately committed to working towards an end to gendered violence, for Indigenous and refugee rights, and for the empowerment of women and young people to determine their own lives and work to change the world around them.

Petra Blagojevic

Petra Blagojevic is a queer trans non-binary person who has been volunteering with Undercurrent since 2016. Petra facilitates workshops, is the outlines coordinator, write outlines and contributes to new workshop ideas and content. Petra is also involved with organising community events and fundraisers for Undercurrent and other causes. Petra enjoys catering events as they are passionate about engaging in collective care through food and cooking. Outside of Undercurrent, Petra works as a support worker for LGBTIQA+ people who have experienced family and relationship violence. Petra's work is informed by their lived experience as a survivor and their belief in community education and building collective capacity to challenge and prevent violence and support those who have experienced harm.

Julia Bak

Julia Bak is a queer, takatāpui student, writer and facilitator who has been volunteering with Undercurrent since the start of 2018. Julia facilitates workshops and coordinates the intake of new volunteers, sharing an inbox with Alice. Outside of Undercurrent, Julia writes about chronic illness, volunteers with WIRE, and is about to undertake their Honours year in Psychology. Julia is passionate about connection, collective care, and prison abolition, and is committed to the ongoing process of strengthening our communities.

Elle

Elle joined Undercurrent in 2018 and is one of the workshop liaisons. This role provides point of contact communication regarding workshops and trainings. Elle is a passionate animal and environmental activist, engineer and psychology student; endeavouring to become a rural therapist in hopes to help communities develop foundations for understanding suicide prevention, lived experience healing, and mental ill-health stigmas and how to dismantle them. Elle is particularly interested in cooperative living communities, transformative justice, healing through cooking and eating plant-based comfort food. She is also absolutely in love with her furry gremlin dog companion Sophie.