Documentaries

Biyani House: Expanding its Capacity to bring Dignity and Safety to Women Escaping Domestic and Family Violence 

Biyani House opened as a women’s shelter in 2022 to help meet the needs of women escaping domestic and family violence in the Canterbury-Bankstown area – a region of Sydney with one of the highest rates of domestic violence calls to police. It opened as the first specialised women and children shelter in the area, and recently expanded its accommodation offering and its capacity to meet their growing needs. 

Escabags: Helping Victims Escape Domestic Violence

The most dangerous time for domestic violence victims is when trying to escape the abuse.

Escabags was founded by Stacy Jane, and provides ‘escape bags’ equipped with essential items so people don’t have to go back home for supplies. Over the past 5 years, 23,000 bags have been distributed, helping women, children, and men to escape abuse more safely.

Dress Her with Dignity: Restoring Choice to Women Escaping Violence 

A woman once arrived at the emergency department with stab wounds from an intimate partner. When she left, she had to wear the same clothes she came in with. Before Dress Her with Dignity existed, this was the reality for domestic violence survivors presenting at hospitals. Now, thanks to Convoy of Hope, victim survivors receive brand new clothing –underwear, shoes, jumpers, everything – helping to restore dignity at their most vulnerable moment. 

Teapot Ministries: Where Women Stitch Together Community, Compassion, and Quilts for Crisis 

Across New South Wales, there are women’s retreats where tired women arrive on Friday nights and leave Sunday with smiles, where 1950s featherweight sewing machines work alongside modern digital models, and where every quilt made carries a label: "Made with love." 

More Than Bargains: How An Op Shop Became the Heart of Its Community 

Where can you buy a Noritake dinner set worth $500 for $1 a plate, send hundreds of dollars of donations to Fiji, and find therapy in sorting second-hand clothes with friends? For decades, a small church op shop in Wentworthville has been transforming lives, both for those who shop there and those who volunteer.

Little Wings: Flying Children to Life-Saving Treatment 

Would you prefer a 90-minute flight or a six-hour car journey with a child in pain to see a doctor? 

For families living in regional and rural Australia, this is a real-life scenario, and the difference is life-changing.  

The Forgiveness Cross: A Symbol of Faith in the Heart of Australia 

In the heart of Australia, 230 kilometres west of Alice Springs, stands a 20-metre steel cross that most Australians don't know exists. The Forgiveness Cross, launched on Good Friday 2023, marks a remarkable story of faith, reconciliation, and indigenous achievement that began exactly 100 years earlier. 

How Vision Radio answers the call to connect rural Australia

“I like the isolation, but I also am a social person,” shares 76-year-old Alison Gray. “I have the radio on most of the time – on my phone. I just have it in the background, and it helps, it encourages me – lifts my spirits up.” 

In this episode of Helping Hands, we join Alison on her property in outback Queensland to see how Vision Radio provides authentic and meaningful connection for those who keep our country running in some of the most isolated places.

A Very Aussie Christmas

As a broadcaster reaching towns and cities in every corner of Australia, Vision Media is in a unique position at Christmas time. Rise and Shine breakfast radio presenters, Fel Limmer and Andy McLennan, invite listeners from the city to the bush to share the ways they celebrate Christmas.

Operation Christmas Child - the gifts that keep on giving

“Operation Christmas Child is a really tangible, hands-on way that Australians can show love to kids in need around the world,” say Leanne Palmer from Operation Christmas Child.

In this special episode of Helping Hands, we’ll see the wonderful people, passion and purpose behind Operation Christmas Child and journey alongside their work as they coordinate Samaritan Purse’s annual Australia/New Zealand gift-giving initiative.

Ending the cycle of violence with KYUP! power

Incidents of violence against women are sadly growing. In Australia this year alone, horrendous statistics show us that more than one woman has been killed every week through domestic violence.

This is what makes the work of the KYUP! Project even more important, and it’s what drives the passion of its founder, Mel Thomas. Created to break the cycle of family and domestic violence at its grassroots, the initiative is fast becoming Australia’s premier violence and prevention empowerment program for teens.

Changing children's lives, one shoebox at a time

“The kid that’s receiving this gift, that was us twenty years ago … We were kids in a country that was going through war. We received it, and it truly did mean a lot to us,” says Lina, an Operation Christmas Child volunteer. 

Operation Christmas Child - giving gifts of hope this Christmas

“I’ve done shoeboxes since my kids were little – they’re now in their twenties. But I came to the warehouse one day and I looked and thought, this really is an operation – called Operation Christmas Child – and I’m volunteering and realising the magnitude of what can be done,” says Operation Christmas Child volunteer, Jo Lawrance. 

Showing love through the generosity of gifts at Christmas

“Operation Christmas Child is a really tangible, hands-on way that Australians can show love to kids in need around the world,” say Leanne Palmer from Operation Christmas Child. 

It’s a hot day in north-western Sydney. Leanne is overseeing the busy activity at the Operation Christmas Child warehouse, from which Samaritan’s Purse coordinates its annual Australia/New Zealand charitable gift-giving initiative.

Miracles Day 2023 - CBM Australia

This week, we join the team at CBM Australia to find out more about the work they do coming alongside people with disabilities living in the world’s poorest places. Through interventions like the gift of eye surgery and other eye health services, the CBM team fight poverty and exclusion, and transform the lives of individuals, families and communities.