Gloriavale leavers trust launched
The Timaru launch of the Gloriavale Leavers’ Support Trust has been described as an eye-opening event with leavers sharing ‘‘heartwrenching’’ stories.
The support trust was officially launched this week with more than 200 attendees given an insight into what life is like in the 600-strong reclusive, religious West Coast community.
The trust aims to help support those who leave the community, providing financial aid, as well as a link to other agencies. Ticket sales and an auction on the night raised more than $5000 for the trust, while another $25,506 has already been raised online.
Trust manager and support worker Liz Gregory said the event was an ‘‘eye opener’’ for the ‘‘captivated’’ attendees.
Joy Courage, of Geraldine, was among the crowd applauded for sharing their experiences of living within Gloriavale.
Courage drew laughter from the crowd with the opening line to her story: ‘‘I left because my husband was a rebel.’’
Her husband’s refusal to follow restrictions saw him kicked out of the community. She debated whether to stay without him, then decided to go.
But just six months later, under ‘‘constant pressure’’ from her husband’s parents, she loaded her children into a car and drove to where Gloriavale members were waiting to take her back to the West Coast.
‘‘I felt shame and guilt for betraying my husband. The more they told me I was doing the right thing, the more I knew I was doing the wrong thing.’’
Courage eventually decided she could not bear another day at the compound, and enlisted the help of
Bronwyn Kempf – a member of the newly launched trust – to escape.
Waimate district councillor Tom O’Connor, who attended the event to hear first-hand accounts of life inside the community, said he had ‘‘great admiration’’ for those who spoke at the event.
‘‘There was a great amount of courage involved. What struck me is there was understandable anger there, but I never got a hint of hatred. I don’t think I could be that contained,’’ O’Connor said.
‘‘I woke up angry this [Friday] morning and that’s not good. We shouldn’t have these types of things in New Zealand.’’
O’Connor had been concerned about Gloriavale for several years. ‘‘I’ve known people to come out of there from when they were still called Cooperites,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s a very cruel and tragic story of manipulation and thought control and the very worst of fundamental Christianity.’’
He ‘‘absolutely admired’’ those behind the trust and hoped its launch would raise awareness of the issues faced by those within that community.
Courage and her sister, fellow leaver Rosanna Overcomer, of Fairlie, donated three girls’ dresses they had made to the auction, and had many other pieces of children’s clothing for sale on the night.
Overcomer, who was also on the panel, told Stuff the sisters enjoyed sewing clothes because it took a skill they learnt in Gloriavale and allowed them to ‘‘be more creative with it’’.
Overcomer and her family were among the first to settle in Timaru more than six years ago. They met another leaver and reluctantly agreed to go to church, where they were introduced to a supportive community.
‘‘When we left [Gloriavale], we didn’t even want to go to church. But they really took us in and that’s what we really needed at the time,’’ she said.
A Kiwi manufacturer has scored a major coup with a contract to build the first of a more durable breed of mobile Antarctic habitat for a government research agency.
Fibreglass Developments has spent two months building the caravan-like habitat and it left the company’s Feilding workshop for the first leg of its journey to the frozen continent yesterday.
The ‘‘big green box’’, as the workers nicknamed it, is designed to keep a small group of researchers safe and comfortable in 200kmh winds and freezing minus 60 degrees Celsius temperatures.
Fibreglass Developments general manager Steve Bond said Antarctica NZ was trialling a new construction method for its habitats and getting the contract to build the first one was a huge coup for the company and Manawatu¯ .
Antarctica NZ is a government agency set up in 1996 to manage Scott Base and support New Zealand’s scientific research and environmental protection programmes on the continent. The agency wanted a unit, with space for a bunk room, work area, kitchen and bathroom, that could be bolted to a sled and towed across the Antarctic ice by a large-treaded tractor.
Bond said Antarctic habitats were usually bolted together from polyurethane panels but the big green box was a single piece of fibreglass with 150 millimetres of insulation in the walls.
That has never been done before and if it worked well it could lead to more work for Fibreglass Developments when Antarctica NZ started its $250 million rebuild of Scott Base, Bond said.
The company had some expertise in building durable and transportable workspace units but nothing that operated in conditions as extreme.
Bond was proud of his team’s work on the unit, even if he was not too keen on the colour.
‘‘It would not be my choice. But all the buildings they have down there are cucumber green and the vehicles are this shade of bright green . . . It makes things stand out more.’’
The unit is due to arrive in Christchurch on Tuesday, where it will be fitted out with furniture, plumbing and electrical systems and solar panels.
From there, the big green box will head to Antarctica by ship early next year.