In late April we took part in Fashion Revolution Week, a truly powerful movement that was established following the 2013 Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh. In honour of this week for every Woolerina garment purchased we chose to donate a Woolerina garment to a person in need in our local community. We were overwhelmed by the response we received and it was very remiss of us to have not thanked you all for your support earlier so, a huge THANK YOU!!
Warwick, Penny & Pippa spent some time with the staff in the CatholicCare office (pictured above) hearing of the impact the donation will have on our local community.
With your support, we were able to donate 190 Woolerina tops to CatholicCare Wilcannia-Forbes Homeless Service (previously known as Centrecare Wilcannia-Forbes). CatholicCare Wilcannia-Forbes Homeless Service is a team of seven very kind support workers and their team leader Andrew Bament. These people support a rather large geographical area (more than 30,000 square kilometres!) including the Parkes, Forbes, Cowra, Lachlan and Weddin shires. We were pleased to be able to support people in our own local community who are experiencing hard times - we were really quite blown away with some of the stories of what is happening in our region.
Many of the tops were given to women who had escaped domestic or family violence; some tops were also kept to be included in Christmas hampers/presents/packages.
A handful of facts that I thought were worth sharing:
- CatholicCare Wilcannia Forbes has assisted over 526 cases so far this year.
- 145 people identified that domestic and family violence was the MAIN reason they were experiencing homelessness.
- Many who present have experienced homelessness previously, on average 2-3 times.
- With only have 5 rooms at the local Forbes women's refuge, you can see the size of the gap for the need in assistance.
We feel very pleased that we were able to take part in Fashion Revolution Week again this year and to honour our belief that all people should have access to fairly made, long-lasting clothes through this campaign.
Thank you for your support during Fashion Revolution to provide warmth to those in need in our local community.
Pippa xx
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