No Call For Help Should Go Unheard

Your old phone could save a life.

Council is proud to be teaming up with DV Safe Phone to deliver useable working phones that will be re-purposed to assist victims of domestic violence.

To kick start this great initiative Council has donated 58 mobile phones to the campaign that will redistribute a ‘safe phone’ to victims of domestic violence to use in an emergency.

Waste Coordinator, Dayna Walker is proud that Council can be on board with this great initiative that allows residents of the Plains a place to drop off their unwanted phones, by generously helping others while reducing waste to landfill and CO2 emissions.

“We all have unused and unwanted phones laying around and charger cables. If you are thinking of upgrading your phone, we urge you to donate your old phone(s) and charger(s). Supporting a victim of domestic violence with a safe phone, will ensure they can call for help when it matters most”, explains Ms. Walker.

Founder of DV Safe Phone, Ashton Wood said, “access to a working mobile phone to seek crisis support and advice, can literally be the difference between living with, or breaking free from, a life sentence of abuse”.

"Having a second phone hidden away is an important part of a victim's safety and exit plan. It also provides security with the ability to call for help in an emergency," he said.

"We've received phones that have protected around 1300 people who have used them to call for help all around Australia. But our goal is 20,000 phones or even more," he says.

In early 2020, Ashton Wood was doing a spring clean, and he was struggling to donate his used items to charity shops, which were closed due to COVID lockdowns.

"I rang a police officer friend of mine to see where I could donate some of my stuff to charity and she explained that what they really needed were mobile phones to give to domestic violence victims who were trying to escape dangerous situations," Mr. Wood said.

"The mobile phone is often the first thing to be destroyed, taken, or monitored in a domestic violence situation leaving many with no way to call for help.

"I told the police that they could have two of my old mobile phones and that's how the charity started."

Our campaign is aimed at collecting working phones, testing the phones for functionality, ensuring that all user data has been erased, and redistributing working mobile phones to victims of domestic violence, through registered domestic violence and law enforcement agencies, safe houses, crisis centres, and volunteers Australia-wide.

So that no call for help goes unheard.

How you can help in other ways If you don’t have a phone to donate, you can still help support a victim in need this Christmas by making a tax-deductible monetary donation at www.dvsafephone.org/donate. As a charitable organisation registered with Deductible Gift Recipient Status, all donations over $2AUD are tax-deductible in Australia.

The gift that keeps on giving Any phones delivered to the DV Safe phone campaign that cannot be used or repurposed by DV Safe Phone is then sent on to Mobile Muster. The donation of phones to these programs helps to continue the recycling process by reusing phone parts allowing for a sustainable, circular system that benefits everyone on the planet.

Recycle your old unwanted phone(s) and charger(s) by dropping them off at Council!

Council’s Customer Service, level 2, 30 Heber Street or the Moree Waste Management Facility at 57 Evergreen Road, Moree.

Family and domestic violence support services: