Speech pathologist
2017 Australian of the Year | Tasmania
Helping prisoners crack the code of reading, speech pathologist Rosalie Martin has developed a unique approach to literacy. For three years, Rosalie has volunteered at Tasmania’s Risdon Prison, delivering Just Sentences, a pilot project that is helping prisoners to open new doors and explore new worlds.
Rosalie's perfume bottle, family photograph and golden cowrie shells
Wearing perfume is more than a habit for Rosalie Martin. To mark special occasions she chooses a new perfume ‘off the shelf’ without sampling it. That scent is then forever associated with a special moment or place.
In 1998 Rosalie, her husband and two sons aged 11 and eight lived in Fiji for a few months. When leaving Fiji, Rosalie asked the woman serving her to choose a perfume. She chose Cool Water Woman, as she loved the cool waters of her beautiful country.
Rosalie believes her experiences in Fiji have helped shape her approach to work and willingness to try new things.
Photograph, shells and perfume from Rosalie Martin
The power of change
Uprooting from Australia and living barefoot in Fijian villages was the best educational decision I ever made for my children. And for me. I learned that one can just step off the conveyor belt of life and exercise choice outside of societal expectation. In those months I learned something experientially deep about choice and about an ‘I can’ attitude. About chutzpah.
Memories and emotions
When I use this scent, I am reminded of the gentle humility, grace and open warmth of the Fijian people. There, I learned presence, and listening, boldness, and a different humility. I learned freedom. These are the emotional experiences which moved me deeply in Fiji; and why the contents of a little blue bottle have power to forever touch my soul.
Diving for dreams
My husband is a diver and, like I do with perfume, he collects shells: it is his dream to find a golden cowrie. These specimens, both bought in Fiji, remind me that one may dream of utopia, and that to live that dream, one must act. If Richard ever finds a golden cowrie, I know he will leave it on the ocean floor. To ‘be with’ and to ‘have seen’ is enough. One does not need to control a thing to be in its full joy.