Coming back to Ballarat gives survivor Gordon ‘Hilly’ Hill a “chill down the bone”.
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The survivor of St Joseph’s Orphanage at Sebastopol traveled more than 3000 kilometres from Western Australia for Ballarat No More Silence Week.
Mr Hill, speaking at the launch of a LOUD garden bed on Wednesday, said there was camaraderie among survivors.
“I said ‘I’m going to put a week aside’, just to reconnect with guys that are like the family you never had.
“Ballarat to me, it puts a chill down the bone. You get all emotional inside and people say ‘how do you deal with things?’ and I ‘say you put a false front out but inside your head it’s like a bowl of spaghetti, and inside your belly it’s like a bowl of jelly but you’re hiding that to try and help someone else and that’s how I’ve always done it.”
Mr Hill was among the survivors who went to Rome last year. This week is his first trip back to Ballarat since.
He said his family learning about the abuse he suffered helped them see why he treated them so carefully.
“When I went and got married in the first place I created a bubble around my family so nobody could penetrate that but now I’ve been to Rome they understand where I come from and the way I treated them, because the way they were treated they were like angels.”
The LOUD garden bed will be one of many garden beds representing marginalised people at the Food Is Free Western Oval site, founder Lou Ridsdale said.
The site will be launched in spring.
“The idea of setting up the LOUD Garden was to represent a bunch of community groups we deemed as being disadvantaged or at risk or in need of support through growing vegetables,” Ms Ridsdale said.
“We thought a great way to do something really proactive, apart from No More Silence, was to do something really proactive and allow a space for these survivors to grow produce, not only for wellbeing or healing, but to take home to their family and loved ones.”