Earlier this year, The Sydney Morning Herald asked its readers to name the top 100 inspirational Australian women in celebration of the centenary of the International Women’s Day.

The list was alarmingly overpopulated with athletes, politicians and arch-feminist public intellectuals like Germaine Greer.

I say “alarmingly”, because unless a young woman wants to become one of these three, then their example to young women would most likely have less value.

Most importantly, these people are not in the business of purposefully touching anyone’s life in a uniquely personal way. Yet, they are the types of women, along with skinny models and entertainment personalities that mainstream media predominantly give voice to.

Cate Bolt is one of our few committed humanitarians who truly changes individual’s lives. She founded and runs an orphanage in Bali, campaigns for our “estimated 100,000 homeless people” and raises conservation awareness for our environment while at the same time blogging about her “Ordinary Life”, as well as mothering nine – that’s right – nine children.

For Cate, most of the drive to do these things “just comes from within”.

“I can’t look at poverty or suffering without feeling compelled to make a difference,” said Bolt.

It is easy to dismiss such an expression of conventional humanitarian proclivity, but Cate’s story tells us more than her words.

Cate grew up in a nuclear family of two children and disciplinarian parents in the Snowy Mountains.

Her parents wanted her to go to university and study a profession like law, commerce or medicine, but out of a stubborn show of volition, she left school at 16 and pursued her passion in music journalism – a career she enjoyed for twenty years.

When she got married, Cate started her own business of making bridal accessories from leftover fabric of her own wedding dress and built the business from a few sales on eBay to become the largest bridal goods retailer in Australia in just a decade. After this period, she made an unexpected transition from business to charity.

The transition kicked in when Cate’s friend in the United States lost her baby after many surgeries aimed at correcting congenital heart defect (CHD). The friend began a CHD charity and Cate offered to build her a website. From then on, Cate recalls, she spent half of each normal working day “dealing with brides who felt that they were the centre of the universe and the other half was spent staring at photos of dying babies”.

“So I became very intolerant of first world problems,” she said.

Consequently she took a “leap of faith into the unknown” by leaving her business, comforted by the knowledge that she’d spend more time with her children.

It was then that she started focusing on charitable causes and never looked back.

Her children, who she describes as “compassionate and understanding”, inspire her everyday to advocate for environmental conservation.

Her move into homelessness activism, unlike conservation, was deeply personal.

In an interview with the ABC Radio Newcastle last year, Cate said she and her family had been living a life of abundance. Then when the global financial crisis hit in 2009, her family felt it in a big way.

They lost their family home and consequently became homeless. The experience of being on the streets with “literally nowhere to go” had a profound effect on Cate and the family.

It gave her, a writer, a rare insight that those many CEOs who leave their luxurious beds on CEO Homeless Sleep Out nights are very unlikely to ever to acquire.

On January 6, 2010, Cate sent the Twitterverse abuzz with her open letterto the then Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and Queensland Premier, Anna Bligh that opens with this words: “My name is Catherine Bolt and I am many things. Firstly, I am one of the estimated 100,000 homeless people living in Australia today.” 

Her campaign for homelessness infused with a personal experience of it, became a social media phenomenon.

Not long after being homeless, Cate did what her friends would have thought crazy at the time.

“I had a conversation one day with a lady who was going overseas and I mentioned that I wouldn’t mind seeing Indonesia one day.”

The lady, presumably joking about Cate’s humanitarianism, said if you do, “you would end up starting an orphanage”.

“I just laughed it off at the time and then after some thought and research I decided to just go for it,” said Cate.

On June 15, 2010 she took her first overseas trip to Bali and erected an orphanage in the 16 days she spent there. That seemingly crazy undertaking – marginally reminiscent of How I Met Your Mother’sUncle Barney Stinson saying “challenge accepted!” – is still thriving today.

For Cate, however, the jest was not a challenge; it was an epiphany.

Cate with her nine children and Cate's 'other' children, at her orphanage

Having left the high-pressured worlds of music journalism and bridal retail – and ostensibly tired of first world problems as well – she did not have to prove anything. Nor is the drive to help connected to any selfish desire for recognition.

Her optimism and idealistic belief in making a difference has infected her children.

For example, when she started the orphanage, her five-year-old daughter ask her “why doesn’t everyone start an orphanage?”

Cate said she gave it a thought and replied “well, maybe they don’t know how to”. Her daughter immediately replied “well it’s a good thing you know how”.

Here we see Cate inspiring her daughter, but as she confesses, “I was completely clueless in the whole process” of founding an orphanage.

Besides working on conservation, homelessness and the orphanage, Cate Bolt also stays bald for the benefit of others. It is a form of charity other women shy away from and before she shaved her long waves off for $4000 - to be used for medical research - her hair was her main descriptor, without which un-alerted members of her family could have passed her by at the village shopping centre.

Cate said her female friends said “good on you, I could never do it”. Those women, of course, worry about first world problems, unlike Cate.

Last February Cate suffered a heart attack and minor strokes after years of migraines. The strokes caused irregularity in oxygen supply to the brain, leading to significant brain damage.

Cate says “the long term prognosis is not overly positive” but she’s a calm optimist. So far the two key brain functions that stroke usually impairs - the motor and linguistic centers - have somewhat recuperated.

Despite her personal struggles, Cate continues to visit the orphanage, campaign for all the causes she believes in and continues to write. Her personal efforts are central to the orphanage.

Despite this personal health issues, Cate wakes up in the morning and looks at the pictures of orphans who depend on her and tries everything not to let them down.

To help Cate help the orphans or just learn more, please visit Project 18’swebsite or connect on Twitter and Facebook. You can also check out Cate’s blogor befriend her on Facebook or follow her on Twitter.

I'll leave you with this description of why Cate started the orphanage - "I didn’t want to die without doing something extraordinary or without making some effort to leave the world a better place. You haven’t truly lived until you have involved yourself in something that is bigger than yourself. There is something we can all be doing to make the world a better place. The only person I can control is myself – I therefore chose to be the change I wanted to see in the world. Hopefully my actions will inspire others to do whatever they can to save this beautiful world we live in."

All photo courtesy of Cate Bolt