Adele Aria

Adele is a co-founder and member of the Managing Director team at the Independent Collective of Survivors (ICOS), a survivor-led independent organisation dedicated to ending domestic, family, sexual, and gendered violence. ICOS continues to build upon advocacy to value and centre diverse lived experience expertise and voices following the drafting of the Survivor Statement opening The National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032.

Adele is an activist, sessional academic, accredited facilitator, writer, survivor advocate, public speaker, and consultant in not-for-profit, for-purpose, and social impact work. Drawing on almost 20 years' experience across sectors in executive roles and strategic projects focused on human rights, social change, community engagement, including research and policy, Adele's core social justice priority is domestic, family, sexual, gendered, and relational violence (DFSV). Following various roles and volunteer projects within the DFSV field since their teens, Adele has held advisory roles with Australia's National Research Organisation for Women's Safety Limited (ANROWS), the Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission, Centre for Women's Economic Safety (CWES), and other national and state bodies. Adele also serves as the State Coordinator for the LGBTQ+ Domestic Violence Awareness Foundation that established the LGBTQ+ Domestic Violence Awareness Day. Their intersectional advocacy practice and expertise has been fostered through collective and community action, and social justice fellowships and training.

An experienced and skilled facilitator and consultant in strategic organisational change and development, diversity and belonging, and social impact, Adele is the principal consultant for ICOS in organisational readiness and ethical engagement with expertise of lived and living experience of DFSV.

Adele holds Masters in Human Rights and Master of Business (Leadership and Management), and has been fortunate to be granted Adele is grateful to live, learn, and work in Whadjuk Noongar Country, as a queer disabled survivor of colour whose individual and collective advocacy has been made possible by the deep history of labour, generosity, and resilience of others, particularly the custodianship, survival and ongoing knowledges of First Peoples.