A team of tradies has volunteered their time to help turn an old Thai restaurant in Bulli into a permanent space for the Eve Project, a not-for-profit social enterprise which supports women who have experienced trauma and abuse.
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The premises on the Princes Highway are being transformed into the headquarters of the organisation's Eve & Co program, a hospitality-based initiative which provides work experience for female survivors.
The Bulli space will have a commercial kitchen to prepare food for their pop-up food van for markets, and could provide opportunities for them to cater for events, have potential cooking classes and fundraising dinners.
Eve Project co-founder Lisa Brooke told the Illawarra Mercury that they have many plans for the future venue, which will cater for other areas of their initiative.
"The sort of middle space will be our training space for our girls and as well as our case management space.
It will be like a classroom style, but there will be some beautiful armchairs to sit in to do our case management with, and our aesthetically it will look really nice, and will have a little pop-up desk nook there, and the back space will be the commercial kitchens."
For the last couple of years, the Eve Project has been operating out of a space in a church.
Brooke mentioned while they have been extremely supportive and accommodating, having their own space is essential.
"We do case management for the girls, as well, and it wasn't as private as we would like for them. And then just accessible all the time."
Long-time volunteer and aromatherapist Melissa Gale agreed that this space will be more accessible.
"It's so exciting, and it is so grounding for the women to have a place where they know it's permanent.
It's close to the train station, it'll be awesome for the team to be able to prep the food there, prepping the food to run events from there, and without having to drive all the way into Wollongong."
When the space was secured as theirs last year, Eve Project did a callout for assistance in getting the space up and running.
Forrest Small Homes General Manager Richard Hadfield jumped ay the opportunity when he found out through a friend and got into contact with Lisa.
"I said to her 'I would love to do something, but I can't do it on my own, I'll chat with the boys.' Probably 80 per cent of them within five minutes said yes."
"It didn't take long for the other 20 per cent to jump in as well.
"The other thing for me personally, going through the whole COVID so you can just realise how important it is to love your neighbour, and just to focus locally. The Eve Project is doing something locally, so let's get behind them."
Gale also added that it is an essential space for the area.
"Even though Wollongong is an affluent society, there is still a lot things that go on. Affluence doesn't take away from abuse whether it's domestic, emotional, financial abuse, there are so many factors to it."
If you want to learn more about The Eve Project, head to theeveproject.org.au.
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