A lot of people have asked me about why we are producing the documentary Shattered. The back story really starts with my own grandfathers.
My paternal grandfather was killed in a quarry cavein in 1938, the year before the start of the Second World War. He left behind a young wife who had also immigrated with her husband from the U.K to Australia and four young children.
Overnight, my grandmother had no income, no food and no way of returning to her own family support in the U.K due the the world turbulance at the time. My father grew up in poverty as a result and it took years for the family to receive any form of compensation for my grandfather's workplace death.
My maternal grandfather was involved in the mining sector and rescued a man in a mine collpase with toxic gases causing air flow issues. Sadly the man was deceased. My grandfather carried the man on his back up a deep mine shaft and went home and lay on his bed telling no one what had occurred. He was awarded a citation for Bravery from the Royal Humane Society.
It is this interest that has led me to produce the documentary Shattered. Working as a workplace chaplain I met 5 women who all shared similar stories of abuse in this system. It's a story that needs to be told. A story of despair and ultimately hope that the system will be able to heal and embrace lived experience to listen and restore a system that many say is broken. Some even say it is beyond repair.
This can only happen when we acknowledge what has occurred and work to end the moral injury that is impacting many who have had the misfortune of being injured at work and encountered this cruel system.
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