Shine - Margaret Fitzgibbon
Shine (Safer Homes in New Zealand Everyday) is an Auckland-based specialist domestic violence service established in 1990. Shine provides a range of specialist domestic violence services, all with the primary aim of supporting adults and children experiencing domestic violence to become safe. These include a range of services for adults and children harmed by domestic violence, as well as a non-violence programme for men who’ve perpetrated domestic violence. They also provide a range of training and educational services alongside a DVFREE workplace programme.
Our lovely Marg has been with SHINE for 2 years working in the education and training team. She is a DVFREE Coordinator and Senior Trainer. Half of her role is working with employers to provide support for people who are experiencing family violence and also providing accountability and support for change for employees who may be perpetrating violence. The other half of her role is working with community groups like HEART, providing educational sessions about family violence. She also works with a wide range of organisations and practitioners throughout NZ seeking tailored specialist training around family violence.
Marg worked as a coordinator for HIPPY in Glen Innes for six years and then moved on to work for HIPPY NZ (Great Potentials) as a HIPPY NZ Manager: Training. She feels a strong connection to the Tāmaki (Glen Innes and Panmure) community. Marg found out about Shine when she worked as a HIPPY Coordinator. After leaving HIPPY, she wanted to see what else she could do to provide support for families and this led to her becoming involved in the Education team at Shine and in the family violence sector. From a very young age, Marg has been involved in activism and has a deep commitment to social justice. She has only ever wanted to work in organisations that want to walk alongside whānau to support and build change within communities.
Marg first connected with HEART when she was a HIPPY Coordinator and has always respected how HEART works from a grassroots space of being led by the community. HEART is the community, working in the community and for the community. In regard to her ongoing mahi with HEART, she looks forward to being to create more spaces for korero around family violence and gaining a better understanding of what the community needs from Shine.
The heart of the work is about dignity. Marg says that “if people are experiencing family violence, then that’s just one thing about them, it’s not the whole of them. Every conversation that we have with someone experiencing violence needs to uphold their dignity. If people trust us enough to share that they are experiencing violence, we need to listen and not judge, but provide support and help when they are ready.
Fun fact: In her early 20’s, Marg lived in a cave/hut for a month on her own in Central Otago in the South Island that had been used by Chinese gold miners in the 1800's and was then restored for a film.
Marg’s words of advice are, “My outlook is that simple acts of kindness that we practice every day can actually make a really big impact on each other's lives and in the world. Smiling at someone, having a conversation with the person serving you in a shop, picking up a piece of rubbish, saying ‘thank you', helping someone in some small way, can actually make a big difference in a person’s day and create a ripple effect.”
Click through to the website for Shine for more information on this Partner Organisation of the HEART Movement.