donation by the Centennial Trust.

Physical Abuse Centre chair June Augustus, who has been involved with the Centre for 20 years, stated: "One of our dreams was to have ownership of one of the buildings, and it happened to be the Safe House.'' The Centre has been renting the Safe House from the Bermuda Housing Corporation, and an undisclosed donation by the Centennial Trust along with fund raising drives has made the purchase of the building closer to becoming a reality.

The Centre became one of the five members of the Family Resource Network established earlier this month.

And the Centre has admitted more than 850 women and children into the Safe House since 1991.

Mrs. Augustus said more than $275,000 had been raised for the building so far, but said the Centre was "still hopeful'' that Government would offer more financial support to the Centre.

The Centre's target for the "Safe House Building Fund Campaign'' is $700,000.

"Government gives us a grant of $60,000 per year, but to really run things for the amount of domestic violence that's in this country we need over $300,000 per year,'' she said.

"Bermudians still don't take domestic violence as seriously as they should, and we try to educate as many people as possible,'' she added.

Mrs. Augustus said the Centre was hoping that the "Quincy'' model of handling domestic abuse would be brought into local legislation.

Under the Quincy model, any physically obvious signs of abuse like bruises or black eyes can be used to prosecute abusers.

The announcement of the donation came shortly before Domestic Violence Observance Day on October 29.

HEALTH HTH