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With just a few snips, 28 to be exact, a head full of dreadlocks that took Maris Depers 20 years to grow were removed in just minutes. So, what thoughts run through your head when you're about to have your first hair cut in two decades? “I try not to be too vain, and none of that matters anyway, but I do wonder if I’m going to be ugly on the other side of this,” Mr Depers said just before the first chop. “The way I’ve been making sense of that is, unfortunately in our community one in four women experiences physical or sexual violence in the course of their lifetime – and that’s uglier.” A crowd of more than 50 people gathered outside the Cutting Edge Barber Shop in Unanderra on Saturday to watch the Wollongong psychologist lose his locks. The Salvation Army drug and alcohol counsellor said goodbye to his dreads, which collectively are more than 25 metres long, to raise money for women trying to escape domestic and family violence. Each dread was cut one-by-one, before the bundle of hair was weighed. The figure – just shy of 900 grams. In a special moment, Mr Depers’ grandfather Barry Hazelgrove, from Young, cut the first dread after winning an impromptu auction for the opportunity. “It was his hand that went up pretty quickly. It led me to believe he may have been waiting for a few years to have a go at them,” Mr Depers said. A short time later, after a bit of a tidy up and all that weight being lifted off his shoulders, the 35-year-old felt “quite odd”. “It feels just outright strange, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it,” he said. Mr Depers’ online fundraiser – Ease the Dread – had raised $8762 by late on Saturday, with more than $3000 also raised at the event. The money will go to Supported Accommodation and Homelessness Services Shoalhaven and Illawarra (SAHSSI). Mr Depers encouraged others to consider “taking the next step”. “Whatever that next step is … that can help to address issues like women’s safety, domestic violence or even homelessness,” he said. “If we could all take the next step and just do one extra thing that would make a dramatic change in our world.” To donate: mycause.com.au/page/125991/ease-the-dread.

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