To honour the lives of people lost to family and domestic violence during DV prevention month, a candlelight remembrance ceremony evening was held at the Maleny Neighbourhood Centre on Tuesday May 10. The annual event, a collaboration between Speak Up Now – Stop Domestic and Family Violence Maleny and Blackall Range, and the Maleny Neighbourhood Centre, saw around 50 community members brave blustery weather conditions to show their solidarity and support by attending the vigil.
Val France from Speak Up Now said that it was a very positive evening that featured high calibre guest speakers including author Lisa Curry, Dr Karen Struthers, Cr Winston Johnston and QPS representatives. She said that having the event held indoors in one place rather than outside at Tesch Park gave a different feel to the gathering, however it was still a very powerful evening with the messaging from all the speakers consistent and strong.
“All of our speakers were wonderful in addressing the issue of family and domestic violence – the consistent message was that our men in our society need to step up to help stop the violence,” said Val.
“I want to thank everyone for their support of the event and I hope we can all continue to work together to raise awareness that domestic and family violence is unacceptable in our community.”
www.facebook.com/SpeakUpNowStopDomesticViolenceMalenyBlackallRange
Main image: Ian Demack (President MNC), Mark Tabone (husband of Lisa Curry), Lisa Curry, Cr Winston Johnston, Dr Karen Struthers (Director National Centre for Action on Child Sexual Abuse), Jonathan McBride (Acting Senior Sergeant/ OIC Domestic and Family Violence and Vulnerable Persons Unit), Nicholas Paterson (Sergeant Maleny QPS)