Melbourne man asks for public's support to start foundation for Jesuit abuse victims

By Loretta Florance
ABC News
December 23, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/orutxnx

Janusz Skarbek is a former Xavier student still fighting for compensation from the Jesuits for alleged abuse.

Janusz Skarbek attended Xavier College for three years from 1971.

A man who is still fighting for compensation over alleged abuse he suffered at Xavier College in the 1970s has turned to crowdfunding in an effort to establish a foundation to support other abuse victims.

Janusz Skarbek, 54, attended the prestigious Melbourne school for four years in the 1970s, but said it was not until decades later that he remembered his ordeal.

He said he told his story at a private hearing at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, and now he is telling it again as part of a public plea to raise $15,000 to start the Fellowship Foundation.

On the crowdfunding site Chuffed, Mr Skarbek described how his abuse entailed beatings, rape and torture, and left him physically and emotionally damaged — and how it all came back to him in 2012:

"That's how it goes for some of us. Without any warning. Pow. Just like that. A lightning bolt that splits your head apart. One minute I didn't know. The next minute I did. Simple as that.

"Some struggle with nightmares — unexplained. Tortured, fitful sleep. Screams in the night. Misplaced anger. Torrid thoughts. Hate. Anger. Shame.

"Others struggle with the memories. Day to day, they're there. Haunting thoughts taking the simple pleasure out of life.

"Misplaced anger. Snap. Arrest them. Run. Hide. Scream again. Head under water. What does it all mean?"

The campaign aims to raise $15,000 by January 5 next year.

Earlier this year, Xavier College admitted that nine students were sexually abused at the school in the 1960s and '70s, and another six, including Mr Skarbek, were having their claims heard.

Mr Skarbek said he believed there were many, many more.

He said the foundation would be aimed at creating a community of former Xavier College students who had suffered abuse, but would also reach out to others who had suffered abuse at the hands of Jesuit priests.

"I've always wanted to do a foundation, it came to me maybe a few weeks after I realised my abuse. I was certain that I wasn't alone but I didn't know how big the numbers were," he said.

"Very few people keep in contact from the time, so it's very hard to just ring someone up and say 'were you a victim can I help you?'

"We're trying to get a mechanism together to say 'we are here, this did happen, you're not alone, if you want to talk with us, you don't have talk about the abuse, but we're happy to talk about the impacts and then we can work from there'."

He said the funds would go towards the legal and lodgement fees to set the foundation up, website development, internet connection and a dedicated mobile phone.

"The foundation will be a properly structured corporation, we're looking for charitable status so we can pay for our work," he said.

"There's a point of contact which will be a website and it'll simply be a webmail form where hopefully people who want to speak to us will just send us a webmail if they want to speak and then we'll pass them a phone number.

"Beyond that, what do you need? You need something simple like a coffee machine and you can sit around the coffee machine and have a chat.

"It's such a simple thing, I want a tea and a biscuit and want to chat, I want to say something, I want to hear something."

Mr Skarbek said he hoped it would be a community where people could get together and share their experience, skills and contacts.

"We know how to make a referral, make a claim with Jesuits, police, the royal commission — there's someone who can really assist with it," he said.

"You know what the best thing to do, is you help yourself by connecting with other people, and the resounding thing is that I have found that someone who helps someone else feels better about their own thing."