To be held on Friday, August 1 at Forbes Services Memorial Club, the event will provide information to the community on the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and how people can share their story with the Royal Commission.

The Royal Commission has been set up to look into how institutions have managed and responded to allegations and instances of child sexual abuse.

Binaal Billa applied for a grant to run this event to connect with the people of Forbes about the issue and in particular want to engage with the Aboriginal community to help them speak out.

“Our core work is family violence or sexual assaults and this is an important commission investigating how institutions have responded in the past to sexual abuse,” Binaal Billa’s project coordinator Michelle Kable said.

“The Indigenous community are under represented in telling their stories, so this event is aimed at them and inviting more of the community to speak up.”

The event will showcase the many ways to tell your story through literature, song and dance, with local performances from Red Bend Catholic College’s Aboriginal dance group, local band House of Tribes and local Wiradjuri women telling their individual stories.

“We’ve tried not to have too serious a tone with the performances so people do engage… it’s not going to be too heavy on the day,” Ms Kable said.

A highlight of the day will be the celebrity guest speaker, Casey Donovan, who is one of Australia’s most acclaimed indigenous entertainers and the youngest ever winner of Australian Idol.

Casey will be speaking about her family life, her passion for music and the effects of winning a reality TV show, as well as performing some of her greatest hits.

“The Royal Commission is for everyone and anyone can attend the event but we’re trying to engage the Aboriginal community which is why we’ve chosen Casey Donovan to be the guest speaker,” Ms Kable said.

“She’s a strong Aboriginal woman who has been through a lot in her own life and I think she’s a great role model.”

There will also be other support services there on the day and information stalls set up.

“We’re trying to connect and work in with other services, rather than just being a forum on the Royal Commission,” Ms Kable said.

Representatives from NSW Health Sexual Assault Services will be there to give a presentation, as well as a guest speaker from KnowMore, which provides legal advice for those wanting to tell their stories to the Royal Commission.

Ms Kable said Binaal Billa can also arrange video linking with the Royal Commission for those who don’t want to speak at the event.

People won’t necessarily have to tell their story on the day, instead they will have the opportunity to provide their details to the Royal Commission, who will then get in contact with them.

“It’s quite a process…it’s not an instant thing because there are a lot of stories being told,” Ms Kable said.

“If they don’t want to tell the Royal Commission there are still services there that can help, otherwise they can connect to the Royal Commission and organise a meeting over the phone or connect with us and we can link them up.

“We can also use video link up so they don’t even have to leave their own home.

“We’ll provide them with a support network such as counsellors to work through the process.”

People telling their stories will help to build a picture about what happened to children in the past and how to better protect our children in the future.

However, this can be a difficult thing for victims, who often feel a great sense of shame and stigma surrounding their abuse and who are likely to have buried it for many years.

Information obtained in private sessions for the Royal Commission so far has revealed that on average it took victims 22 years to disclose the abuse, men longer than women.

“People don’t want to talk about it; it’s like a dirty secret for them,” Ms Kable said.

“There’s that shame and people are often young and vulnerable and groomed to think if they do speak up there are consequences.

“We’re trying to remove that stigma from the victim because it’s not their fault – it is the fault of the perpetrator and the institutions that have allowed them to get away with it.

“These events affect a lot of other aspects of victims’ lives and often make it hard for them to grow into the people they need to be without dealing with it.”

Ms Kable said this event focuses on intervention and prevention.

“By people speaking up and telling their story we’re hoping it will prevent it happening in the future and there’ll be adequate responses to deal with that,” she said. “It’ll also hopefully be a healing process for victims and a prevention process to stop it happening in the future.”

Doors open at 10.30am on Friday, August 1 and everyone is welcome to attend the event at the Forbes Services Club.

Entry is free of charge and nibbles will be provided.