NOONGAR WOMAN WINS NAIDOC COMMUNITY AWARD

Credit: Supplied, Lorraine Pryor.

Lorraine Pryor, founder of Voice of Hope Aboriginal Corporation, has won the WA NAIDOC Community Service Award for 2023.

Voice of Hope is a women-led organisation that provides a wrap-around service for female inmates once they are released.

“It’s about trying to break the cycle of recidivism for our women, the ones that are also going through domestic violence and substance abuse,” Ms Pryor said.

“It’s people like me that have had lived experience, that can connect to these women and know the answers to these women’s underlying trauma that they may be going through with intergenerational trauma.

“I’ve actually been incarcerated years ago and I went on that journey of healing and reconnected back to my culture and now its time for me to help my community and Aboriginal women.”

Voice of Hope supports female inmates across Western Australia.

One of the gifts it offers is ‘hope bags’.

"We hustle around for donations for these ladies, so that they've got the bare necessities when they come out, like clothing, toiletries, mobile phones and vouchers,” Ms Pryor said.

“We hustle around to help these ladies so they don’t have to re-offend and go back to prison.”