Stolen Generations Survivor Creates Healing Program for Thousands

When Aunty Lorraine Peeters broke down at 54 after a month of nonstop crying, a psychologist told her there was nothing he could do to help. That moment of despair became the catalyst for a healing revolution that's transformed thousands of lives.

Aunty Lorraine, a Wailwan/Gamilaraay woman, was just four years old when she was taken from her family at Brewarrina Mission in western New South Wales. She and her siblings were separated and sent to different institutions, where she endured years of abuse and was taught to reject her Aboriginal identity.

For five decades, she carried that trauma silently. Then at 54, everything erupted.

With nowhere else to turn, Aunty Lorraine started writing. Every day for three years, she poured her feelings and memories onto paper, working through the pain one word at a time. "Writing was my only way of healing," she explains. "I was releasing and working through all that stuff."

Those three years of writing revealed something powerful: a pattern that others could follow. Her personal healing journey became the Marumali Program, the first healing program designed specifically for Stolen Generations survivors and their families.

In the early 1990s, the federal government funded the program for six years. When that funding ended, Aunty Lorraine and her daughter Shaan refused to let it die.

The Ripple Effect

Today, three decades later, the Marumali Program continues strong. Aunty Lorraine and Shaan travel across Australia delivering their seven-step healing process to Stolen Generation survivors, their families, and anyone impacted by trauma. They've even worked with incarcerated people in Victoria, bringing hope behind prison walls.

The program centers on spirituality and connection to Country. After leaving Cootamundra, Aunty Lorraine returned to her ancestral lands in Warren, New South Wales, where her family showed her the tree where she was born. "That's where I found my spirituality, when I sat under the tree where I was born," she remembers. "I'll never forget it."

Shaan has witnessed countless transformations. She recalls working with survivors of institutional child sexual abuse whose lives completely turned around. "They realized, for the first time, listening to Mum, that they weren't alone," she says.

The mother-daughter team is already designing programs for young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, particularly those in out-of-home care. They're determined to help the next generation heal earlier than Aunty Lorraine could.

On a recent Friday morning, Aunty Lorraine attended the 18th Anniversary of the National Apology to the Stolen Generations at Parliament House, surrounded by survivors she's helped heal. Looking back on her journey from pain to purpose, she sees the balance she's found. "Everyone has a story," she says simply.

From one woman's breaking point to thousands finding wholeness, the Marumali Program proves that our deepest wounds can become our greatest gifts to others.