A heart that cares
Tanayah (left) and Joi Picker (right) are working to help others achieve financial stability. (Photo courtesy Joi Picker)
“I love the look of hope on people’s faces. They thought they were going to have nothing for Christmas and (they realise) their children will not have to go without.”
– Tanayah (Salvation Army Moneycare counsellor )
Tanayah had every reason to become an angry young woman after years of enduring domestic violence, but instead she has chosen to reach out and help others. Since she began volunteering (and then also working with) with The Salvation Army in Canberra three years ago, she has helped bring hope and joy to thousands.
From the time she was a baby, Tanayah suffered cruelty and abuse on a daily basis. Then, from the age of 11, she spent years moving from foster home to foster home. “I never unpacked so I could not be disappointed when I was moved,” she says. Growing into adulthood, Tanayah endured periods of homelessness, until she almost inevitably entered into a turbulent relationship which involved more domestic violence.
For many years, Tanayah had little money for food and was offered some support through the Salvos. She says: “I owned nothing. My partner would sell everything I had to get himself what he wanted. He would take all my money and would not think of food for the kids. So the Salvos helped with food and also Christmas gifts so my kids never went without presents on Christmas Day.”
Tanayah eventually fled the relationship, moving into an emergency shelter. She owned nothing except the clothes on her and her children’s backs. With support from The Salvation Army, Tanayah was able to establish a home for herself and young sons. She was also referred to The Salvation Army’s Moneycare free financial counselling service.
It was there that she met manager Joi Picker, who explains: “When Tanayah first came in here, I saw a young girl who had been totally broken. We didn’t get anything done in the first financial counselling appointment. We just had a cuppa and a chat and we tried to figure out some strategies to help her. She was so lost and didn't know what to do or who to trust."
Joi, who has become firm friends with Tanayah, says she is incredibly proud of Tanayah's strength, compassion and ability. “Today, in Tanayah, I see a woman who walks tall,” Joi says. “Her self-esteem has come right up; she’s a very strong person, and there’s nothing she wouldn’t do for a person who needs help!”
When her youngest child began school, Joi encouraged Tanayah to do some volunteer work with The Salvation Army. Tanayah’s first experience of volunteering was helping at Christmas. She loved it – organising volunteers, delivering donations to local Salvation Army churches, interviewing clients and distributing gifts, working to ensure more than 1000 families that first year (and thousands more in the time that followed) had a meaningful Christmas.
She is again working and volunteering tirelessly this year to ensure a meaningful Christmas to many. “I think it’s so important because a child can’t understand that ‘we don’t have money’. How would they feel going back to school and a teacher asking all the kids what they got and one child having to say ‘we didn't have Christmas’, or thinking Santa missed their house. And how would the parents feel knowing they couldn’t give their child what every other child gets?”
Tanayah and her sons attend the Gungahlin Salvation Army Corps in Canberra, and she intends becoming a senior soldier. She has also become an accredited financial counsellor in the past year and is completing a diploma in youth work.
The standard of her work and her empathy towards clients was so high as a volunteer that she was soon employed and trained by The Salvation Army as a welfare worker, before becoming a Moneycare counsellor.
As well as supporting those in great need at Christmas, Joi says Tanayah's role as a Moneycare counsellor is essential. "Without the Moneycare service here, there would be more suicides, there would be more people in deep financial difficulty or struggling with mental health issues because of their stress,” Joi says. “It is so much more than financial counselling – if we see people here that look to be in those positions, we’ll see them once a week, or ring them, make sure they’re OK, keep an open line, build up a rapport with them and try to make sure they are OK, refer them to counselling, until they can get to a better space.”
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