Inspired Magazine vol 3

unwanted bathroom products such as shampoos
and moisturisers to give to people in need.
Above Yoga for Dignity
raises funds for homeless
women and domestic
violence victims.
Right Rochelle and her
friend Hannah, fundraising
for the cause.
FROM DOMESTIC VIOLENCE TO HOMELESS
In 2015 Rochelle was manning a Share the
Dignity stall at a Gold Coast Homeless Connect
event when a 45-year-old woman approached
her for help. “She asked me for pads and tampons
and, when I gave them to her, she looked at me
like I was fricking Santa,” Rochelle says. “I got
talking to her and found out she had two kids who
went to school and they were living out of their car
on the Gold Coast.” After eight years of beatings
from her partner, the woman had garnered the
courage to leave, preferring life in the car to that
of her violent home. She’d cook on free barbecues
along the Gold Coast foreshore, and shower herself
and her kids in public bathrooms before sending
them to school. She had no idea there were people
she could call for help.
“Her story made it really apparent how many
homeless women were out there because of
domestic violence,” Rochelle says.
put a box on their veranda where others could
donate pads and tampons.
As the idea gained momentum Rochelle became
swamped in requirements for licensing, permits,
boards and constitutions. With the help of her
fiance she formed a board. And the right people
kept approaching her to help. A barrister and an
accountant put up their hands to join the board.
An academic with a PhD in world menstrual health
looked her up. Who knew such a title existed? Yet
they too soon joined the Share the Dignity team.
“I surrounded myself with the people with the
skills I needed to have,” Rochelle says.
PAD EMPIRE EXPANDS
Today Share the Dignity runs two drives a year,
through its partner Terry White Chemists, to
provide sanitary packages to 1500 charities across
the country. It has launched 30 custom-designed
tampon vending machines in areas that homeless
women often frequent, to enable them to access
sanitary products.
Share the Dignity sells specially designed
handbags to raise money for more sanitary
items, and it packs bags with donated new and
FUNERALS FOR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE VICTIMS
Move on to 2016 and Rochelle was in her car
listening to the news when she heard the story of
mother-of-six Michelle Reynolds from Redcliffe in
Queensland being slaughtered by her husband.
Here was yet another case of domestic violence
that had ended in death. Rochelle’s eyes flooded
with tears as the voices of Michelle’s loved ones
rang out from the airwaves, pleading for help to
cover the funeral costs for their slain friend. “I sat
there crying in my car,” Rochelle says. “I couldn’t
believe this was happening to them.”
Rochelle again embarked on research. She
discovered that Michelle’s case was no one-off. She
learned that morgues won’t release bodies until
they get the okay from the funeral home that the
cost for the funeral is covered.
Rochelle couldn’t shake the image of grieving
families facing the added trauma of being unable
to pay for the funeral of their loved ones. So Share
the Dignity expanded its offerings and stepped
up to pay for the funerals of people killed through
domestic violence.
FUNERAL HELP
Share the Dignity helps with cases like that
of a little boy murdered by his father, after his
father gained joint custody, despite the mother’s
desperate warnings that her son wasn’t safe.
Share the Dignity paid for the return of the boy’s
ashes to his grieving mother, ensuring the ashes
were delivered in the teddy bear urn his mother
had requested.
Share the Dignity also recently paid for the funeral
of an Aboriginal woman killed through domestic
violence in January, her body left in the morgue for
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ROCHELLE COURTENAY