Into The Woods

Each year, Go-To works with a local charity partner to donate $1 from every holiday set sold. For 2026, we’re working with Women’s Community Shelters, an organisation providing accommodation and support for women and children experiencing homelessness or escaping domestic and family violence.

We had the absolute privilege of sitting down with Meagan Prabhakar, Women’s Community Shelters’ Director of Advocacy, to talk about community, prevention, and hard conversations.

What does Women's Community Shelters do?

Women's Community Shelters provide safe, secure accommodation for people who have experienced domestic and family violence. We provide services across New South Wales, and we're about to move into Victoria as well. 

When a woman comes to one of our shelters, they don't just get a safe bed, but all the wraparound support that goes with it, including helping them find safe, secure housing for the future. We offer transitional housing while women are trying to build up their skills and get a job to help them enter the private housing market.

Part of our frontline work is prevention. We do prevention work in more than 50 schools across New South Wales. We go into high schools to present our Walk the Talk program where we work with students, teaching them about domestic violence, healthy relationships, and what it means if you go through it yourself.  They then support their local shelter with fundraising initiatives throughout the year.

Why is this work so vital for women and children across New South Wales and beyond?

We provided over 81,000 bed nights of safety in the last year, and for every one woman that we could support, there were three we had to turn away. The demand and the amount of women who are still experiencing domestic and family violence is horrific. You only have to look at the headlines to know the nature of domestic and family violence and the way that women are treated in this country. 

This work is so important because so many women are forced to stay in violent relationships because there is nowhere else to go. Beyond educating and talking more about domestic and family violence, we actually have to have the services in place so that when a woman recognises that she's in that situation, she can actually get the safety and support that she needs. 

What’s unique about Women’s Community Shelters’ specific approach to this issue?

Our approach is the belief that the local community should be engaged in this work. At Women's Community Shelters, we believe engaging a local community around a shelter actually does that prevention work as well. 

The 2021 National Community Attitudes towards Violence Against Women Survey found that 91% of respondents thought violence against women was a problem in Australia, but only 47% thought it was a problem in their own suburb or town.

Actually activating a local community helps break down some of those negative stereotypes, so that people can start to realise that the woman in our shelter might have been the woman that was three or four doors down from them. It helps people realise this could happen to anybody. As Rosie Batty said all those years ago, it doesn't matter what your postcode is, it doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter how wealthy you are. Domestic violence can happen and does happen in every community across Australia. 

In terms of the women themselves, we want them to not just get a safe bed, but we want to see these women heal, recover, and thrive. That’s where our wraparound services come in. They get training programs or TAFE courses. In one of our houses, they've got this beautiful sewing class that they've now set up, and they're all learning how to sew. Somebody's even running their own business now. 

Showing these women, who have been told all their lives that they are not worthy, just how strong they are and that they can create the life they want for themselves is so empowering. 

For anyone who wants to make a meaningful difference this holiday season, where would you encourage them to start?

They can obviously support services just like ours. Every donation helps us provide safe accommodation and vital support for women and children experiencing domestic and family violence, helping more women and children find safety when they need it most.

But when we talk about domestic and family violence, it can feel really challenging and tricky. The amount of people that come up to me and say “I don't know what to say, I just don't know what to do.” But it really is just about those small conversations that make a difference. We need everybody in society to be reaching out, calling out problematic behaviour, and starting that conversation. 

Another way is just being a safe person. Actually noticing the signs, just listening, saying that you believe them, saying that you're here for them, and that you'll support them in whatever they need. You don't need to know everything there is to know about family violence, and you don't need to work out what's happening and what's going on. You can just be there and be the trusted and safe person, connecting them with the support services. 

What are some everyday ways people can help create that kind of safer, more supportive environment for women and children?

Unfortunately, at the moment, it's everywhere in the news. It can be really quite crushing to constantly see more and more news, but what it does provide is an opportunity. People are talking about family and sexual violence at the moment, and so that can be a natural way to begin the conversation, saying, "This isn't okay.”

This starts to push back at some of the assumptions and some of the wrong attitudes that people hold as well. People think that it's none of their business, but actually the statistics tell us that approximately one in four women will experience domestic violence. It is your business.

I think it's about educating yourself to challenge those assumptions that allow violence to continue to be condoned in families and in communities. 

Of course, it can be really hard and challenging to talk about domestic and family violence—so it might be that you flip it on the other side and speak to the solution. It could be like: “Hey, I bought this great thing from Go-To, and they're supporting women's community shelters. They do this great work to give women safe beds every night.” Even that conversation can help change attitudes.

What’s something you want people to know about family violence? 

It's okay to not have to engage with [the topic of family violence] all the time. It's okay to step away and look after your own mental health and your own safety. You don't have to always be on during this time.

It's also important to know that there are great organisations doing the work to try and end violence against women and children across this country, and specifically in your local community.

Go-To is donating $1 from all marked gifts and sets to Women's Community Shelters this holiday season. You'll also have the option to make an additional donation at checkout.

If you or someone you know is being affected by domestic violence, call 1800 737 732.

1800RESPECT: 1800 737 732

Full Stop Australia call 1800 FULL STOP 1800 385 578

13YARN (24/7 crisis support for Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander peoples): 13 92 76

In an emergency, call 000