Woven Earth turns empty houses into homes for those who have fled violence and are trying to rebuild their lives. We are a caring community of individuals and businesses passionate about doing something positive in response to family violence.
One of the barriers preventing women from leaving violent relationships is the fear of losing their homes and possessions and uprooting their children’s lives.
A core part of our goal at Woven Earth is to support the children, who are walking the family violence journey alongside their parent. We make a point of finding out their special interests and what favourite possessions they may have had to part with. It becomes our mission to source items including toys, belongings and items special to each child to ease the turmoil often experienced by children caught up in this journey.
Through the power of community spirit we use social media, personal networks and monetary donations to gather good-quality furniture, beds, bedding, homewares and whiteware, before transporting them to families in need. On average, we fill about 3 homes a week, yet sadly there is demand to do many more. We are passionate about giving dignity to the families we support and equally to the givers who donate their preloved items to help us fill homes and furnish lives.
Through the generous support of the Jenkins Foundation we will now have the necessary technology to support our service to cope with this demand and ensure that we can keep up the quality of service to frontline agencies, families and donors. This is paramount for us going forward. We have learnt over time that an important part of our service is our ability to track donations from individuals and businesses and to thank these donors directly once their donation goes out to a family in need. This level of acknowledgement highlights the culture of Woven Earth, that our service is based on community support and giving.
The comment from whom in the project:
” I have never ever seen such an effort made for me in my life… you thought of every single layer of things I would need… its the most beautiful thing anyone has ever done for me in my entire life. My baby’s room and all the toys and her crib, everything is so perfect. There’s no way to repay you except to just appreciate it all and do well in my life with the fresh start you have helped give.”
For more information on Woven Earth visit www.wovenearth.org.nz