About Us
THE STORY OF THE SISTERS
Who the sisters are and what they are working towards
The Sisters
Bianca
Biggest Sister - Co-Founder and CEO
Your favourite red head, Bianca is the creative and compassionate Biggest Sister. She loves belting out a classic Madonna tune and revels in the fact that people are always unsure if she is the younger, or older sister.
With a Bachelor of Business and Masters in Teaching, Bianca is passionate about leading the way for our young people with authenticity and realness. Struggling with more than her fair share of “doona days” after a diagnosis of anxiety and depression, Bianca has worked hard to identify tools and strategies that assist her in living a mostly happy and positive life. She felt passionately about empowering our young girls with the same tools and strategies to assist themselves, and one another, through the current mental health struggles our society is facing.
When she is not inspiring the next generation of fierce and determined women, Bianca loves hanging out with her fur baby, Frankie, reading a good book, or tending to her countless houseplants that threaten to overrun her apartment. Often mistaken for twins, you will find Bianca within a 10 foot radius of Kritz at all times, or else rest assured they are in constant communication via phone or Facebook messenger.
Kritz
Big Sister - Co-Founder and CEO
Empathetic and intuitive, Kritz is the powerhouse behind The Big Sister Experience. Various and ever-changing shades of blonde, Kritz is a fierce and loyal Leo who has the ability to read situations (and people) like a book.
Knowing children were a strong part of her future, Kritz graduated from RMIT with a Bachelor of Teaching. After learning from her own experiences in life and love, Kritz wanted to make more of an impact on women’s lives on a more personal level. She begun assisting her sister Bianca with live events and mentoring programs for ladies, finding great fulfilment in being able to make a real difference in the lives of the women who were learning from the program. Leading by example by opening up about her battle with an eating disorder and self harm throughout her teenage years, Kritz has a way of empathising with the girls we work with, and helping them through their own challenges.
Today she is the heart and soul of The Big Sister Experience, leading the way with her ‘get it done’ attitude and spidey-senses. A sucker for a good home-made Poke Bowl, when she’s not meditating or smudging her apartment, Kritz can be found spring cleaning her apartment or soaking up some vitamin D from Bianca’s balcony.
What We Do
The Big Sister Experience is a social enterprise that saves the lives of young girls. Through community events and in-school workshops, The Big Sister Experience covers ethical and moral issues and promotes tools and strategies on how to live a happy and healthy life.
From mental health to safe sex, life-skills, body image and social pressures, The Big Sister Experience isn’t afraid to get deep into real-life issues that are affecting our teen and pre-teen girls today.
Facilitators use storytelling, current research and interactive activities to engage the girls and impart essential skills to ensure they can live to their fullest potential.
They have now extended their work to include mother-daughter and father-daughter connection events, parent workshops, teacher professional development sessions, and a new corporate series. The Big Sister Experience takes a holistic approach to educating the youth of today and ensuring they are supported along the way both at home and at school. The Big Sister Experience is on a mission to empower the girls of today through self-confidence and self-love to become the confident, resilient and empowered young women of tomorrow.
Why we do it
As co founders, Bianca and Kritz are the perfect ‘big sister’ figures, allowing young girls to feel safe, understood and like they can ask for advice in a judgment free space. As real life sisters, Bianca and Kritz are authentic, vulnerable and relatable, and share their own stories about anxiety, depression, eating disorders and an abusive relationship, as well as many other challenges faced throughout their lives as young women.
Facing her own mental health challenges, Bianca was passionate about equipping young girls with the tools and strategies needed to empower yourself with sound wellbeing, and to be able to support your peers through similar challenges. Kritz faced her own battles with an eating disorder and an abusive relationship, and wondered what may have been different for her if she had a safe space to open these difficult conversations, and ask for help. The sisters’ stories are not unique. The more they work with girls the more they see a need for a space safe to open these conversations and empower girls with strategies to ask for help, seek information, and support one another through these challenges. This is why The Big Sister Experience is such a heart-centred and passion driven initiative.
What we’ve achieved so far…
The Big Sister Experience launched in March 2019. In the short time the program has been running, the achievements and growth only proves how essential this kind of modern, authentic life education is to the youth of today. 2020 will also see the active rolling out of the Corporate Series which offers a range of workshops to the workplace revolving around resilience, wellbeing, connecting as a working parent, and leading by example both in the workplace, and at home.
Supported by Melbourne City Council with a social enterprise grant, The Big Sister Experience has been recognised for their valuable and unique 3-point program and is proud to be working with the MCC grants team for 2020. Check out the media page to view features of The Big Sister Experience on Studio 10, The Today Show, ABC Radio and many more podcasts and radio interview, as well as print media features. The Big Sister Experience has also partnered with The Australian Education Union to deliver professional development sessions to Victorian teachers. The Big Sister Experience is proud partners with Lotus Healthcare, ensuring all our mental health content is up to date, and adheres to our Duty of Care requirements. We are looking forward to seeing what opportunities and partnerships will find us in 2020 as we align with organisations with similar values and a passion for change and education.
What we aspire to
The Big Sister Experience aspires to be the leading provider of life-education and wellbeing support for pre-teen and teen girls, and their families and educators. The team is working hard to reach a goal of establishing a 24 hour hotline where girls can text, message, or call in to receive personal and discreet support when they are feeling most vulnerable and alone. The Big Sister Experience aims to continuously seek government funding, grants and philanthropic investment to enable schools from all areas and communities to access the program for their girls, giving our youth another opportunity for a safe, happy and healthy future.
In all that The Big Sister Experience undertakes, nurturing our young people lays at the core of it. They are striving to inspire the young girls of today to become the empowered, resilient and capable women of tomorrow. The sky is the limit… watch this space!