The sisters started their journey on October 1 and will finish on November 17, holding 30 supporter walks across the country during that time through their initiative Ripple Effects of Sexual Abuse (REOSA).
Libby Arnt said around 15 people showed up to the Whanganui support walk on Sunday, which started at Virginia Lake and went down Victoria Avenue.
She said many sexual abuse survivors attended the support walks.
"One person on the Whanganui walk told me it was the first time she had talked about her experience openly, and that it was really healing for her to open up about it."
She said that for survivors, sharing their stories helped release them.
"Sexual abuse survivors are silenced and isolated, and the support walks have become a safe space for people to share their stories and feel heard."
The Ministry of Justice's most recent New Zealand Crime and Victims Survey (NZCVS) statistics showed 94 per cent of sexual assaults were not reported to the police.
The survey also showed almost 30 per cent of New Zealand adults experienced intimate partner violence, or sexual violence, at some point in their life, with women three times more likely to experience sexual violence than men.
The Police Crime Snapshot website shows from September 2021 to September 2022, 43 incidents of sexual assault were reported to the police in the Whanganui region.
This was down from 62 reports from the previous year.
The support walks are usually between 5 and 6km and take two to three hours, Kate Arnt said.
"And as childhood survivors ourselves, if we can help stop another child from going through the horrors and aftermath of sexual abuse, every step and blister of our walking is worth it.
"My abuse was suppressed for 20 years, but the ripples played out hard in my teenage years because I tried to numb the pain with different things."
She said the first step was to have the courage to feel the pain and then you've got to do the work. And then you create tools to deal with the triggers.
"The triggers never go away, but you build the tools to deal with them."
"Say it's alcohol, then comes the next lot of ripples. Then you've got a hangover when you go to work, which turns into your self-worth, mental health and well-being.
"So then it's not just you that it affects, it's your friends, families, colleagues and communities."
Whanganui Safe & Free is a specialist agency helping survivors of sexual violence through the agency's counsellors, kaiawhina/ social workers and preventative education.
Fahey said the long-term effects could include not being able to work or be around people, anxiety, mental health issues, not wanting to wash, and not being able to function in normal day-to-day life.
"So it affects every part of your life."
She said with preventative education, Whanganui Safe & Free was trying to help children have autonomy over their own bodies.
"Because bodily autonomy is not something they know automatically, it's something they need to be taught.
"We teach them a song about their body parts, so by the third day you've got a bunch of kids yelling out 'scrotum', it's great," Fahey said.
"We all want to keep our children safe and preventative education hopefully helps take away those hard conversations from some parents."
She said it was about teaching children to be selective, such as not kissing or hugging adults they didn't know even if they are told to by their parents.
In 2021 Whanganui Safe & Free helped over 120 people and hundreds of people in the education programmes, Fahey said.
"After coming out of the first lockdown in 2020 in June 2020 to December 2020, our numbers had doubled since before lockdown," Fahey said.
She said in that time many of the cases were historical cases coming forward.
"There were many isolated people during that time and they had the time to really reflect and they couldn't run from it."
