Summary: Melina Scharnroth is the founder, chief organiser and the head of a possibly unique organisation called M.A.D. WOMAN. The MAD in this case has nothing to do with Melina’s sanity but, rather, stands for Making A Difference. The function of the outfit is to connect people with events. The idea began when Melina was working as a journalist in New Zealand and met Eve van Grafhorst, one of the first Australian children to be infected with HIV through a blood transfusion. She became the centre of a huge controversy when parents at her local pre-school demanded she be removed because of their fears she might infect other children. The family moved to NZ where they were welcomed. Melina met Eve who became the centre of a fund-raising campaign for AIDs research. Eve died when she was 11 and Melina came to Australia 15 years ago to work in public relations. “I wanted to find a nice boyfriend, which I ran as a social experiment about what would happen if you got a lot of single men and women into a soup kitchen and involved them in feeding homeless people.” And out of all that has come MAD Woman, a very successful business that these days is capable of connecting almost anyone to almost anything else.
