The Hawkesbury Family and Domestic Violence Forum will this year hear from a brave local woman who has volunteered to share her terrifying story.
She has asked the Gazette to remain anonymous to protect her three daughters, and despite her bravery, wanted to avoid being seen as the poster-woman for surviving domestic violence.
“I don’t want to be seen as a survivor because I am still fighting and I need to protect my three children,” she said.
“It has been six years since I left and he is still a presence in our lives.
“When I left with my children I left with the clothes on our backs - I left everything behind.”
The mum of three said her experience with domestic violence involved her husbands addiction to drugs and despite her university education and good upbringing, “just leaving” simply wasn’t that easy.
“Trying to keep my children and safe, staying at a motel for $300 a night or emergency housing where we were all in one room and I couldn’t even warm my daughters bottles, was like living in prison.”
Despite dealing with her former partner through the criminal justice system, she couldn’t win in the Family Law Court, making keeping the man away from she and her children near impossible.
Despite the constant struggles, this hardworking mum proved her strength by re-establishing she and her girls in the Hawkesbury in a home she bought after securing a huge job working on developments on and off shore.
She sends all three of her daughters to private school and is determined to give each of them a life full of opportunity.
This is just some of the story this woman will share at the Hawkebsury Family and Domestic Violence Forum on Thursday December 10 at Hawkesbury Seniors Leisure and Learning Centre in Richmond.
The forum hopes to teach those in attendance about domestic violence research on a national and Hawkesbury level.
They will hear personal journeys through domestic violence, their experience navigating the systems and where they are today.
It will also give them the opportunity to share their experiences, challenges and approaches to Family and Domestic Violence in the Hawkesbury Local government area.
The forum will help Hawkesbury City Council generate ideas from all in attendance and identify collective strategies towards both educating and addressing issues of family and domestic violence within the wider community.
To register to attend the The Hawkebsury Family and Domestic Violence Forum visit www.fwtdp.org.au and for more information contact Vicki on 9620 6172.
