Ballina will turn purple again this week as the community gathers for the sixth annual Walk Against Domestic and Family Violence, a home-grown show of solidarity that has become one of the town’s most meaningful traditions.

On the surface it’s a gentle, community-paced walk from the Ballina Visitor Information Centre to the Ballina Indoor Sports Centre.

But what it represents now — six years on — is much bigger: a prevention movement born in Ballina, embraced by the Northern Rivers, and picked up by towns and cities across Australia and around 20 countries worldwide.

At the centre of it all is local Rotary identity Dave Harmon, backed every step of the way by his wife Robii and a growing circle of community partners who have turned a simple idea into real change.

A moment that wouldn’t let go

The story begins not with a plan, but with a funeral.

In 2018, Dave travelled to Kyogle for a memorial service for a friend’s sister who had been murdered in Melbourne, in front of her three young children. Sitting through the eulogy, he felt something shift.

“Just listening to that eulogy, I was quite touched by it,” he says. “I was the incoming president of our Rotary club, and I came away thinking, could we do something about domestic violence in Ballina?”

But that day became a line in the sand for Dave — a moment that wouldn’t let him shrug and move on.

The first step

The first walk was held in 2019.  Dave admits he wasn’t sure where it would lead.

“In all honesty, we thought that probably we might just do one or two years, and that’d be the end of it,” he says.

Plenty of people doubted it too. Some asked what a walk could possibly change. Others quietly hoped it might help, but weren’t convinced.

Then Ballina did what Ballina often does when something matters: it got behind it.

Purple shirts began appearing everywhere — schools, workplaces, sports clubs, cafés, shop counters.

People stopped Dave and Robbie in the street to talk, to share, to say thank you.  The conversations started rolling before the walk even began.

“It’s out there, it’s everywhere,” Dave says.

“The community is so behind it.  People see us walking down the street and give us a high five.  The conversations these shirts start on their own are just incredible.”

From awareness to outcomes

Six years on, the purple movement is no longer just about visibility.  It is about measurable, local change.

Ballina recorded a 47 per cent increase in re-reporting in 2024 — victims who had previously reported violence returning to police again.

“That’s a sign that women are feeling believed, validated, supported and heard. It shows they are now confident to come forward,” Dave says.

The Purple Friday campaign is another quiet success story, with more than 100 local businesses now taking part.

Ballina Coast High School has embedded it into school culture, with about 130 staff wearing purple each Friday, and Ballina Primary following suit.

BCHS principal Peter Howe has told Dave and Robii the school has seen a dramatic decrease in violent behaviour since Purple Friday took hold.

More importantly, the campaign has normalised everyday conversations about respectful relationships — between teachers and students, among staff, and between students themselves.

“It’s wearable advocacy, the shirts create conversations and helps to normalise those conversations.”

Love Bites and the long game

What makes Ballina’s model different is that the walk is only the visible edge of something deeper.

“It’s essentially a prevention strategy.  We still support victims in many ways, but we realised to make a change you’ve got to go upstream and try and stop it and prevent it.”

That upstream work is happening through Love Bites, the respectful-relationships program that began at Ballina Coast High School and has expanded around the state and beyond via NAPCAN, the National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect.   Robii oversees the delivery of the program across the Northern Rivers.

Cherry Street Sports Club and Ballina on Richmond Rotary recently funded training for 60 new Love Bites facilitators locally, with educators travelling from far outside the region to learn the model.

“We’re 100 per cent committed to youth.  Research tells us the best way to begin change is to educate youth.”