00:00There have been tears of joy today at the official opening of Australia's first Women's
00:07Trauma Recovery Centre in the Illawarra. The project itself was born of an idea some seven
00:12years ago by a group of fierce women advocates and victim survivors themselves. We've been
00:18allowed inside today to see the outcome of all of that vision. It's a trauma-informed
00:24space co-designed by the victim survivors with the interiors all created to ensure their
00:31comfort and recovery. At the time they first dreamed of this centre being opened, the local
00:39women in the region who were providing support for women and children fleeing domestic violence
00:44and sexual abuse were overwhelmed by the scale of what was needed to support women escaping
00:51violence. It was unfair and unjust that as a society where we didn't protect the women
00:58we were not even providing a service for recovery and healing so the gap was significant. It's
01:04absolutely needing to be filled going forward, not just here in the Illawarra but across
01:08Australia. After knocking on lots of doors and talking to lots of politicians they were
01:14eventually granted $25 million from the federal government, the Morrison government at the
01:18time, who is said to have said if he could have had five more centres he would have provided
01:23the additional funding. So after years of work this centre's finally opened. It had
01:29a soft opening about a couple of months ago and it's had a client referral base of about
01:34100 where they're seeing women come in and receive the wraparound support services they
01:39need. On Monday they will officially open their doors to all of the women in the Illawarra
01:45and they believe in some three or four years they could be servicing as many as 600 women
01:50through the centre. They hope that this centre is a blueprint for centres around regional
01:57Australia.
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