A rural health service implements financial program to help country women start over

Broadcast: 30/11/2007

Reporter: Tamara Oudyn

SALLY, RURAL DOMESTIC VIOLENCE VICTIM: There was a lot of verbal abuse. There was a lot of physical abuse. There was, even down to the children being hurt by him.

I think you wake up one morning and you realise that it's either that you are not going to survive to see the next day.

You don't have a lot of time. Normally about an hour. Maybe two if you are lucky, but you pretty much get what you can and go.

TAMARA OUDYN, REPORTER: No, matter where you live, the decision to leave an abusive partner is fraught with anxiety, uncertainty and immense fear.

But for women living in country areas, those feelings are magnified. Isolation, fewer support services and sometimes limited access to the police make fleeing even harder to contemplate.

SUSIE REID, WOMEN'S HEALTH GOULBURN NORTH EAST: That's why it is so hard for women to leave. Because of really practical things like it's the most dangerous time when he's saying I'll get you. A lot of the time he does.

SANDY KING, WOMEN'S HEALTH GOULBURN NORTH EAST: Whether it be axes or firearms, they are just more prominent in the country.

And those weapons of control are used without the neighbour over the fence hearing because the neighbour often lives several kilometres away.

TAMARA OUDYN: One of the biggest issues for women in rural areas, who manage to get away from a violent partner, is money.

They often emerge from their relationship with no access to the family finances and go to refuges or shelters with little or no belongings.

By the end of this year, a new financial assistance program will have been launched in the north eastern Victorian town of Wangaratta, to help women right across the Hume region break away from violent relationships.

Women's Health Goulburn North East has set up a no interest loan scheme, based on the concept of microcredit.

SANDY KING: The majority of these women, especially those leaving domestic violence have had their finances controlled to the tee, right from the start of relationships and have no credit card, have no joint bank account, anything like that.

So their ability to walk in to a bank is absolutely zero.

TAMARA OUDYN: Sally and her children recently escaped an abusive relationship and can't be identified for safety reasons.

In the past month, Sally has been accepted into a no interest loan scheme, or NILS.

SALLY: The NILS program opened doors for me that changed my life.

That helped me re-establish who we are as people, and re-establish the confidence as a mother that I could achieve things that financially I knew I couldn't do.

TAMARA OUDYN: There are 50 NILS programs in Victoria, which loan small amounts of up to $1,200 for essential household goods like fridges, washing machines and cooking items.

WHITEGOODS SALESMAN: This fridge right here will fit into your kitchen nicely and has all the features that...

TAMARA OUDYN: The system works on the idea of circular credit so that when a loan is repaid, the money goes to someone else who needs it.

Community groups like Good Shepherd Youth and Family Service run the programs with funding from local philanthropic arrangements and donations.

MICHELLE SAINSBERY, GOOD SHEPHERD: We don't tell people what they need to buy with those loans. We actually encourage them to go to various traders or providers of goods or services, and really make the decisions, make the choices that we're able to make as consumers on a daily basis that.

So that empowerment is fantastic.

TAMARA OUDYN: Micro credit has long been used to empower those too poor to be deemed credit worthy.

NILS programs aimed at helping domestic violence survivors have been operating in cities around Australia for years.

But the adoption of the concept in Wangaratta is a first for Victoria's country areas and comes at a time when many rural families are under stress.

SUSIE REID: Not everybody experiencing drought belts the wife up or the partner up.

So it is about, we have to be very careful to say, but he's going through a drought.

But, yes, anecdotally, we are hearing that things have got worse.

TAMARA OUDYN: In Victoria, community groups believe using micro credit to help women who have been abused, goes a long way to restoring their self esteem and building confidence and financial understanding.

MICHELLE SAINSBERY: Nationally our default rate would be around three to five per cent.

Which is a tremendous result and I guess a way of really showing that people appreciate and respect the opportunity and really take seriously their requirement to repay the loan.

SALLY: If I've come this far in such a short time and keep going down the road I'm on, I can go anywhere I want in six months or in 12 months time.

And that's where the NILS program has helped - that I can do just the simple things.

KATHY BOWLEN, PRESENTER: Tamara Oudyn reporting.