A DECADE ago, Kylie Johanson and her two-year-old child fled their home, survivors of domestic violence.<\/p>\n
Although she had developed the courage to leave, Ms Johanson was also pregnant with her second child, and found it difficult to access the support and resources she needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need shelter, legal support, and the police told me they couldn\u2019t protect me unless I had an intervention order in place,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI applied for legal aid four times, as a single parent on a pension with nothing, and I still couldn\u2019t get it. I went through five court cases, also trying to work and support my children financially.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really hard. When you\u2019re in that emotional state and that heightened fear, you really need someone to help you, to tell you what path to follow, and what options are available.\u201d<\/p>\n
With an awareness that resources available are underfunded, and 25 years of business development experience, Ms Johanson has launched her own national domestic violence charity, DV Collective, run from her home office in Ballarat.<\/p>\n
The aim is to secure corporate sponsors who can donate funds, products, and resources, which will trickle down to the collective\u2019s member charities and organisations.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy purpose is to make sure that a woman doesn\u2019t go through the journey that I went through,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not recreating anything, there\u2019s hundreds of organisations out there, but if I can generate some resources that are going to help these existing organisations, and help more women, then that\u2019s my goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs soon as organisations become a member, they can access a quite significant pool of funding, and pro bono products and services, and they\u2019ll be connected to a wide range of resources they wouldn\u2019t normally be able to receive, especially in a small town.\u201d<\/p>\n
Businesses already supporting DV Collective include Zip, IBM, and Superloop, a company that could offer wi-fi and mobile service to victims of domestic violence.<\/p>\n
\u201cBig retail companies are asking, \u2018what do the shelters across Australia need?\u2019 and saying they can reach out to their suppliers,\u201d Ms Johanson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith COVID, people have been trapped at home with domestic violence escalating. DV is now on the radar of corporate Australia, so corporate Australia needs to put domestic violence policies in place.\u201d<\/p>\n
DV Collective also provides a human resources toolkit listing all members across the country, which HR departments can make accessible to their employees via their intranet.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyone will be able to see what services are around them in Ballarat, for example, that are there to support them,\u201d Ms Johanson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want employers to make sure they\u2019re supporting their employees.\u201d<\/p>\n
The charity was officially launched in Sydney last week, and Ms Johanson said it was a celebration of the connections she\u2019s made so far.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt takes a lot of skills and resources to create a charity, and big national organisations have been very supportive and providing skills, like IT software skills, to create a portal,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wouldn\u2019t be able to create that platform without those connections because it would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A DECADE ago, Kylie Johanson and her two-year-old child fled their home, survivors of domestic violence. Although she had developed the courage to leave, Ms Johanson was also pregnant with her second child, and found it difficult to access the support and resources she needed. \u201cYou need shelter, legal support, and the police told me […]<\/p>\n