Deliver Justice to Lewis Blayse and His Family

By Aletha Blayse
Change.org
February 27, 2014

http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/andre-cox-deliver-justice-to-lewis-blayse-and-his-family

Dear General Andre Cox, Salvation Army World Head:

I’m disgusted by what I learned in the news in recent weeks about the Salvation Army’s treatment of children in its ‘care’ in Australia.

I’m shocked that the Salvation Army recently awarded a ‘Silver Star’ award to John McIver.

I’m shocked to learn how victims who first spoke out about abuses in Salvation Army institutions were ignored by your organisation, and sometimes even called liars.

I am appalled to learn that Lewis Blayse told your organisation of abuses at Alkira in the 1990s but that I’ve only just learned about them just now.

I don’t believe the slick spin put out by the Salvation Army that everything is all better now – I can make up my own mind, and I’m not impressed.

I can’t believe your Australian branch is still encouraging people abused in Salvation Army homes to come to the Salvation Army rather than go straight to the police.

I’m deeply concerned that the Salvation Army is still being entrusted with the ‘care’ of children and adolescents through programs such as Youth Services in Australia.

I’m also appalled that the Salvation Army throws people whose lives have been ruined by your organisation disgustingly small sums of money (if anything) and then leaves them to suffer and wither away.

In fact, I no longer believe the Salvation Army is a fit and proper organisation to be entrusted with the care of vulnerable children.

I want to see your organisation called to account, and I want this to happen now.

I support Lewis’s daughter, Aletha Blayse, in her call for justice for her father and his family.

As a start to re-establishing my shattered trust in the Salvation Army, I want the Salvation Army to make full reparation for the loss of Lewis’s Blayse’s potential and a lifetime of poverty and suffering and the damage done to his family in a manner that satisfies his surviving family.

Contact Lewis’s daughter on www.lewisblayse.net and just do the right thing!

And then to do the same for the Salvation Army’s many, many other victims too.

Until such time as all this happens, I want you to know I won’t be giving the Salvation Army another cent of my hard-earned money. And I’ll be asking my local elected representative why my tax dollars should keep going to the Salvation Army too.

I want you to know that I simply will not tolerate this rubbish from the Salvation Army any longer.

To:

Andre Cox, General Andre Cox, World Head of the Salvation Army

James Condon, Commissioner James Condon, Territorial Commander, The Salvation Army Australia Eastern Territory

Peter Farthing, Major Peter Farthing, Royal Commission Response Coordinator

I have signed the petition set up by Lewis Blayse's daughter, Aletha Blayse, and support her call for justice for Lewis Blayse and his family because I'm extremely angry at how they've been treated by the Salvation Army. Do the right bloody thing! How hard can it be?

Sincerely,

[Your name]