Child Sexual Abuse Survivors Inspire Play

By Georgie Moore
The Australian
July 7, 2017

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/child-sexual-abuse-survivors-inspire-play/news-story/c6953f42dfb40505738f8bb4d1cc1c8e

Survivors of child sexual abuse in Ballarat have turned "pain into strength", with their stories being told in a play about the town's notoriously dark history.

'No More Silence', opening in the regional Victorian town on Friday, is based on interviews with 13 men and women abused in institutions and by their families.

"A lot of them had families that didn't believe them... a lot of them were just told to pray and a lot of them, as men, were just told to get over it," Hannah Davies, co-director of the Federation University Australia alumni production, told AAP.

About half of the survivors were involved in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, fellow director Fae O'Toole said.

"It's not an easy story ... but I wouldn't say it's unpalatable," she said.

"When we walked away from those interviews, we didn't walk away feeling pity.

"They've translated this pain into strength."

Davies and O'Toole were inspired by the "Loud Fence" campaign, which began in Ballarat in 2015 when people tied coloured ribbons to the fence around the former St Alipius Boys' School in support of abuse survivors.

"Hannah and I were both raised in religion and it was kind of terrifying and shocking to hear that this had gone on under people's noses for so long," O'Toole said.

"We felt we could help bring these people's stories to the forefront."

No More Silence, which intertwines the stories of anonymous survivors with music and dance, will show at Ballarat's Wendouree Performing Arts Centre on Friday and Saturday, before going to Bairnsdale and Geelong.

The directors plan to donate ticket sales to the Centre Against Sexual Assault in Ballarat and hope to take the play to Melbourne.