Abandon All Hope - a history of Parramatta Girls Home
Details
Parragirls is an organisation of over 350 former residents of the Parramatta Girls Home and their supporters, including activists and academics. Parragirls provides a contact register and support network for the Forgotten Australians of the Parramatta Girls Home and related institutions.
The organisation was formed in 2006 to lobby for the preservation of the site of the former Female Factory, which later became Parramatta Girls Home, and was used as Kamballa, Taldree and the Norma Parker Detention Centre. The organisation also draws attention to the history of the site, as a place for the incarceration of women.
In 2017, after significant lobbying by Parragirls, the Parramatta Female Factory and Institutions Precinct was inscribed on the National Heritage List. The inscription notes that "the Precinct is outstanding in its capacity to tell the stories of women and children in institutions over the course of Australian history". Parragirls works to protect, preserve and promote the history and heritage of the Precinct, and activate it as an International Site of Conscience.
The Parragirls website contains information about this project, and the Precinct.
Sources used to compile this entry: 'Dismay after Parramatta's historic Norma Parker Detention Centre orphanage damaged by fire', Parramatta Advertiser, 10 January 2013, http://parramatta-advertiser.whereilive.com.au/news/story/dismay-after-historic-site-damaged-by-fire/; Parramatta Female Factory and Institutions Precinct, National Heritage List, 2017, https://www.dcceew.gov.au/parks-heritage/heritage/places/national/parramatta-female-factory-and-institutions-precinct; Han, Esther, 'Female Factory tales to be told', The Sunday Sun-Herald, 4 November 2012, http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/female-factory-tales-to-be-told-20121103-28qub.html; Parramatta Female Factory Precinct, 2006-, http://www.parragirls.org.au/.
Prepared by: Naomi Parry
Created: 25 January 2013, Last modified: 26 July 2023
Last updated: 4 August 2023
Cite this: https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/ref/nsw/biogs/NE01235b.htm
First published by the Find & Connect Web Resource Project for the Commonwealth of Australia, 2011
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