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Broker-run charity Safe Haven Community has called on brokers to support women who are trapped in coercive and controlling relationships by donating $10 as part of a Christmas Challenge campaign.
Safe Haven Community is a registered charity supporting women and their children with a range of advice and support services to help them if they wish to leave these controlling relationships.
This can include everything from linking them up with emergency accommodation, to providing food and clothing, or support with services like counselling, setting up bank accounts or Centrelink.
The group has launched a newly-designed $10 Christmas Challenge in the lead-up to Christmas, in an effort to make supporting women and families easier for a higher number of individual brokers.
Safe Haven Community founder and Etairos Finance broker, Jaeneen Cunningham (pictured above), told Australian Broker that coercive control behaviours often tended to escalate over the Christmas period.
Women seeking a way out also have added challenges during the season, with nowhere to go and hotels booked out, or not having money to feed their children or buy them any Christmas gifts.
Cunningham said brokers could help ensuring women had an option to seek safety, quoting Australian Femicide Watch statistics showing 85 women had been killed this calendar year.
“$10 can make such a difference,” Cunningham said. “Maybe you can’t give a lot, or can’t volunteer, but it can’t cost too much to invest $10, and if we all did, these statistics would go down.”
“The women who get killed are the ones who can’t leave.”
Safe Haven Community launched in 2015 and in the nine years since, has assisted a total of 14,000 women and children, including helping them access a total of 90,000 nights of accommodation.
The charity focuses on women under coercive control, which can involve financial, emotional and sexual abuse – including having their money taken away or tied up in joint bank accounts.
However, Cunningham said the charity relied on donations and fundraising to survive and support women, as it had been so far unable to secure government funding support for its services.
The gateway to Safe Haven Community’s services is a used clothing emporium, where women can enter in relative safety and pretend to browse as they connect with Safe Haven’s support services.
Cunningham’s records show the store has between 50 and 70 customers a day during the year, and that on average 40% of those customers would be there to seek assistance from the service.
At Christmas time, the number of customers increased to a total of about 100 or so per day.
The charity acts as a resource hub, Cunningham said, which can include providing introductions for jobs, meeting immediate needs like furniture and petrol, or helping them access legal services.
“The job we do is we get down and dirty on the ground and help people. We don’t get accolades, we are just helping these people because it is the right thing to do.”
The charity is hoping as many individual brokers as possible will consider donating $10 this year.
Previously, Cunningham said brokers and lenders in the industry have donated $50 vouchers at Christmas, to help women pay for a ham from the supermarket and a small toy for a child.
This year, the new $10 Christmas Challenge has been modelled on the previously viral social media Ice Bucket Challenge, which Safe Haven is hoping will encourage more brokers to get involved.
With a target of $20,000 set for the fundraising challenge this year, Cunningham said brokers could use it as a way to show their clients they were supporting community on social media channels.
“This industry has 21,000 brokers and $10 is pretty easy to donate; imagine if everyone in the industry was able to get behind this and donate, it would be so great for us.”
Support from the industry has been increasing since 2015, with brands such as AMP Bank, Commonwealth Bank and Liberty all involved in supporting the group this year, in addition to funds raised at broker fundraising events.
However, Cunningham said the support from individual brokers could be stronger, and her vision was for the industry to adopt the cause as a wider industry movement to make a real difference to women.
“This movement, if brokers get behind something like this, could really become a part of the broking industry; imagine being able to say we were all instrumental in stopping coercive control?”
To donate as part of the Safe Haven Community’s $10 Christmas Challenge, and to find out more about how you can participate in Safe Haven’s social media campaign, visit the donation page here.
If you or someone you know is experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, domestic, family or sexual violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732, text 0458 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au for online chat and video call services.
If you are concerned about your behaviour or use of violence, you can contact the Men’s Referral Service on 1300 766 491 or visit http://www.ntv.org.au.
Kids Helpline (1800 551 800) is a free, confidential online and phone counselling service for young people aged 5 to 25. This service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
