About PARRAGIRLS

Parragirls is the official support network and contact register for Parramatta Girls Home.

We strive to promote understanding, reconciliation and healing in all our activities Parragirls is an initiative of the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct Association (PFFP), a non-profit organisation, established in New South Wales in 2006 by former inmates of Parramatta Girls Home who sought to broaden community awareness of the Parramatta Precinct, its institutions and individuals who once resided within its domain.

We are faced with enormous difficulties in getting to the heart of the story, and in uncovering this history. One barrier being the sense of shame and lack of self empowerment, not to mention lack of education and economic disadvantage that these women have experienced all their lives. Likewise with many who contact us we encounter the aftermath of the experience first hand, often manifesting as a mental illness or addiction particularly for those women who were sent to Hay.

Women who need support not only for their physical health but their emotional well being and for whom we can offer no help but to listen.

Our greatest difficulty is in dealing with the bureacratic wall of resistance that hides behind a provision in the Freedom of Information Act which does not permit public access to institutional records for a period of seventy years, which means that those of us still alive and able to interpret the meaning implied in these records will not live long enough to illuminate the text. 

We are saddened to learn that more than 40% of all records created by the Welfare Department have been 'lost' or destroyed due to past record keeping procedures. Forty percent that represents at least 40,000 individual lives whose childhoods have been wiped out and finally the residual bias and devaluing of women's history as a area of significant importance in Australia's story.

We urge you to contact us, to show your support, to reconnect, to be validated and to contribute

Comments

[suzanne milne nee castledine]

i to was a parra girl today i saw my heart broken again the pain returned tears flowed i hadn't been there since i left approx 1958? see i cant remember but i will lend my voice because i know i left my childhood there and i want it back so count me in i vote yes

[Linda Carson [nee] Bentley]

I was in parra between 1966 2 1968 I had a lot mental issues to work through never held a job down etc

[Linda Carson [nee] Bentley]

is there any one out there that remembers who I am I remember Ruth Borret Lizzy Wyman Jessica Wiggly.

[Patricia Stowers]

Although I was never detained at Parra, I have a sister that was, this place left horrendous scars on her emotionally, I narrowly escaped being sent their from Minda, but thankfully managed to gain passage out of Australia. Bad memories is all these institutions have for me.

[lorraine mulholland]

does anyone remember me..lorraine cameron?i remember ruth logan pat irwin..lizzy wyman..i was in there in 197o..1971..july..

[c nixon]

hi
iwas at parra girls 1967-68, yes i remenber ruth borret very well i survived that hole thanks to ruth taking me under her wing'. i am or was then christine Nixon

[patricia noble]

Hi I was there in 1961 to 1963 I remember lots of the girls and still see some of them.Many of the girls have died from addiction and broken hearts some of us survived by never forgetting the cruelty we were subjected to and the occasional kindness we encounted
I remember Dianne Carney Rita abalons June McClusky Gloria Wyper and many more especially Dianne Pritchard who slept next to me and was a georgeous funny little thing who died in terrible circumstances .
I remember it all but try and forget as much as I can .I remember Lyn Cappella who has made her life very successful.
Pat Noble