Dalmeny resident and businesswoman Carolyn Lord is a proud supporter of Escabags, a charity that supplies emergency essentials to people fleeing domestic and family abuse.
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It provides free discreet bags that women can hide so that they have emergency supplies for a day or two after fleeing a violent situation.
Escabags is a registered charity distributing Escape Bags across Australia through stockists like Ms Lord, owner of Kakadu Collections, and Red Cross Narooma.
When Ms Lord signed up a year ago, she received four Escabags and signs to advertise their availability.
Ms Lord said Escabags has done a lot of fundraising and many items in the Escabags are donations.
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Ms Lord hasn't experienced domestic violence but has seen it.
"My first real job was a court clerk for the NSW Attorney General Department in Sydney and I became familiar with AVOs." she said.
In the late 1980s she did a road trip around Australia but never got further than Jabiru in Kakadu National Park.
"It is a mining town with many Indigenous people and you saw a bit of violence," she said.
"I also had a girlfriend in Darwin who came to my place because she had been in a bad situation.
"That was 20 years ago," Ms Lord said.
Ms Lord also has a long-standing passion for keeping clothing out of landfill.
Years before it was fashionable she held clothes swap parties with friends and now runs a business buying babies' clothing from mothers, cleaning them up and reselling them at very reasonable prices.
She advertises her Escabags on the Woolworths community notice board and has the bags available at the Tilba markets where she sells up-cycled and her homemade baby cloths.
Escabags was started by Stacy Jane, a domestic violence survivor.
In 2018 Stacy Jane fled to a friend's house after her partner tried strangling her.
When she went to the supermarket the following morning for essential supplies, people stared at her because it was clear she had been violently attacked.
Another strangling attempt occurred in March 2019 when the UK couple visited Australia.
That was when she met an Australian family who took her under their wing.
Stacy Jane applied for a protection visa in August 2019 to move permanently to Australia.
Part of her rehabilitation from complex post traumatic stress disorder was sewing tote bags.
In February 2020, triggered by the violent death of Queensland's Hannah Clarke and her children, she launched Escabags..
For information on how to contact Ms Lord for Escabags: www.kakaducollections.com.au
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