IB Woman
Issue No. 15 - February/March 2004
Il Portavoce
Ada Sestili
Women who choose to be nurses or carers often have an intrinsic desire to serve the needs of those less fortunate. Ada Sestili is one such woman whose natural caring has combined with her childhood surroundings of people in business. But growing up in Italy, Ada knew that women didn’t go in to business and they rarely, if ever, had the opportunity to speak their own mind.
But the young Ada Barone was a mischievous girl with a mind always working and learning. ‘My father was an international wine merchant and I loved just being around him and his business friends,’ she remembers. ‘The ambience of people doing business always excited me. But women could never become involved in business in the small region where I grew up. It took coming to Adelaide for that to happen.’
Arriving in Adelaide at just 16 years of age to join two older brothers, Ada was able to study nursing which kept her intelligence and sense of usefulness primed. She married, becoming Ada Sestili, and had children while continuing her nursing and caring. It wasn’t until she was in her early fifties that Ada finally gave in to the deep desire to run her own business. Direct Care was born.
‘I saw a need in our culture that could not be ignored,’ she says. ‘Many people in need of domiciliary care just didn’t know it existed or how to access it. The Italians call it Il Portavoce – the voice that speaks out.’
Being over 50, Ada was not eligible for NEIS (New Enterprise Incentive Scheme) assistance. So with her usual good nature combined with a steely resolve, she stood up to the system – and won. Starting seven years ago in a spare bedroom, Ada’s whole house soon became her office as the work started to flow in. But the work was not just coming from local Italians; Ada found that many people of all cultures were ignorant of their own ability to access domiciliary care.
Ada combines persistence with her strong sense of justice. She has seen too ma...
