By CASEY NEILL
FAMILY violence victims can find support at Dandenong and District Benevolent Society.
Opportunity shop manager Margaret Ladner is offering help to anyone fleeing a physically, emotionally or economically abusive home life.
“I would like the people of Dandenong to know that there is a door here,” she said.
“I would love them to come in and we’ll give them any help they need.
“I’ve been known to take them home.”
Ms Ladner and her team distributes clothes and food, and refer victims to organisations which specialise in accommodation and other support.
“We’d have two or three a week coming in,” she said.
“I try to keep in touch with them, especially if they have kids.
“We had a girl in here and she had a six-month-old baby, no food, nowhere to go….
“They feel forgotten, they feel no-one wants to hear their stories.
“And it’s such a stigma, you don’t want to tell your family, you don’t want to tell your friends – or your family don’t want to know.
“My mother used to say ‘you made your bed, you lie in it’. That was the old-fashioned way.
“The man was the boss.
“That’s definitely still happening and I’d hate to think anybody didn’t know we were here to help them.”
Society president Wilma Southern was pleased to see family violence being put in the spotlight.
“People are taking more notice of it, I do think that,” she said.
She used to work at welfare service Cornerstone Contact Centre in Dandenong with Mandy Ahmadi, also known as Zahara Rahimzadegan.
In June last year her husband Nasir Ahmadi was jailed for 11 years after pleading guilty to strangling her and burying her in their Ashwood backyard in December 2011.
“She started a hair dressing salon. She taught people how to do the hairdressing and did it all for nothing,” Ms Southern said.
“Her husband used to do odd-jobs around Cornerstone.
“He thought she was flirting with someone in Cornerstone and he killed her.
“I knew her well. She was a lovely lady who did all she could to help others. She had two sons.”
Dandenong and District Benevolent Society is at 305 Thomas Street, Dandenong, and can be contacted on 9793 3736.
