MEDIA: RizeUp completes home number 2000
Not-for-profit organisation, RizeUp Australia, provides practical support for families who have fled life-threatening domestic and family violence.
For more than a decade, Chief Executive and Founder Nicolle Edwards has worked closely with specialist services.
With the help of volunteers, they ensure vulnerable family violence survivors are set up in a safe, comfortable space.
This November 1st the Gold Coast-based organisation transformed their 2000th home, which signifies 2000 families saved.
“Everyone deserves to be safe” is their slogan. Nicolle Edwards explains: “The families that we support are at the greatest risk of homicide, homelessness and terrible injury.”
“As a community, it takes a collective effort to lean in and let victims know that we are there to support them, that we recognise what they have been through and we are here to provide assistance as they hit the restart button on a life free from violence,” she told Queensland Leaders.
Nicolle currently manages over 1000 volunteers and a full team of dedicated staff across Australasia.
When families leave a refuge, they are given a barren property.
Working together, RizeUp teams try to “purposefully fit together all the pieces” that turn these empty units and houses into homes.
Volunteer, Rob Longstaff, who dedicates his weekends to helping set up RizeUp homes told Channel 7: “I don’t think I can fundraise or lobby government, but I can drive a truck; I can put a bed together, and I feel that I’m helping a bit.”
The team also appeared on Channel 10.
Edwards founded the national not-for-profit 7 years ago, after assisting a young woman set up a new house after fleeing a violent relationship and realising there was a huge gap in the delivery of that assistance.
“2000 is a massive milestone but it also desperately pains me at the same time because we know that we are just skimming the very surface of the need,” she said.
RizeUp Australia has created various programs to support and empower victims, spoken at key engagements to raise awareness, as well as providing much-needed practical help.
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