A sold-out gala in Lismore has raised more than $200,000 for Women Up North (WUN) and its Bugalma Bihyn Aboriginal Women’s Refuge, which can accommodate up to five families.
More than 300 guests came to the 1920s-themed ‘Glitz, Glam, Gala’ event at Lismore Workers Club on Saturday, 24 October for an evening of live music, dancing, raffles and auctions.
The annual gala, which was organised by WUN, and supported by investment management firm, Challenger, has raised more than $600,000 since it began in 2023.
The money raised will help cover improvements and running costs for the refuge and fund WUN’s immediate response work for women, children and young people experiencing domestic and family violence.
Women Up North CEO, Jillian Knight-Smith says she was proud of the community for ‘turning up and making the effort despite the weather’ to ‘dance against violence’.
‘This gala night was about raising funds to finalise a long journey of repairs to our refuge. We’ve been raising the money to do some work in the yard to make the garden trauma-friendly and pleasant for mums and bubs.’
Support needs growing
Knight-Smith says she has seen ‘an exponential growth in social disadvantage’ in the Northern Rivers in recent years.
‘I’ve seen a growing increase of people needing support for domestic and family violence in every way, and having to work so much harder as a service to meet those immediate needs that are coming up,’ she said.
She said WUN is ‘just part of the solution’, with a responsibility on the community to protect people at risk.
‘We are the people that get the phone call when there is nowhere and nobody for someone to turn to, but we need the whole community… It’s really good to see local groups and corporate groups coming together, as well as our local community. Every little bit counts.’
Chief Executive of Challenger, Nick Hamilton, says this year’s proceeds will help in ‘very direct and practical ways’.
‘Businesses have an important role to play alongside the community in helping create a safer and fairer society,’ he said.
Women Up North, this year won two awards including Homelessness NSW’s Learning and Development Award for worker, Marnie Davis’s Yarning for Change workshops, and a collaborative award for its involvement in Safe to Speak, a multicultural program that trained 110 individuals in responses to disclosed domestic violence in migrant and refugee communities.
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