The Grace Tame foundation, founded and named after 2021 Australian of the Year Grace Tame, has announced its closure after five years, citing “increasingly challenging” long-term funding issues.
“After careful consideration, the board has made the decision to close the foundation,” the foundation wrote in a statement today.
“Like many small advocacy organisations, sustaining long-term funding for this work has become increasingly challenging,” it added.
Launched in 2021, the foundation pushed for reforms in the space of child sexual abuse, in the wake of Tame’s own abuse at the hands of a school teacher when she was a student.
The advocacy group reflected on its work when announcing its closure, citing its landmark efforts around survivor identification laws, anti-grooming education and the support it has provided to hundreds of survivors.
“We helped shift the national conversation by putting safeguarding children firmly in the public spotlight – even when it was uncomfortable or costly,” the foundation wrote.
The statement went on to praise Tame for her “fierce and uncompromising advocacy for survivors, and her determination to ensure the experiences of those harmed as children could no longer be ignored”.
Though the organisation is shutting down, it said its mission will continue though the work of survivors, advocates and other groups still pushing for reform.
It comes a few weeks after Tame revealed her speaking engagements had dried up during what she called an “ongoing national smear campaign against” her following her attendance at Sydney’s anti-Isaac Herzog rally in February.
“This is my last presentation of the year and it’s only March… due to an ongoing national smear campaign,” Tame said at an anti-domestic violence event last month. “I have lost all my speaking for the foreseeable future. So many cowardly others capitulated.”
At the time, Tame said she was “up against a well-oiled political machine” but would remain “tough” in her ongoing advocacy.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese criticised Tame’s appearance at the rally — where she chanted the phrase “globalise the intifada” — while apologising for calling her “difficult” last month.
The chant is used by Palestinian supporters to advocate for Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation, but governments worldwide — including the Australian state and federal governments — view it as hate speech.
“There are other issues, such as the language that Grace Tame used, that I disagree with, at the demonstration that was held in Sydney,” Albanese said.
In its statement, the Grace Tame Foundation said the closure will be “finalised in the coming weeks”.
Lead images: Getty and Instagram
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