This post is a departure from my usual photo-heavy storytelling. It's about donating to causes near and dear. I've at long last, after many years, sorted my priorities, both for financial donations and for volunteer work.
I am not congratulating myself for giving money to charity, but only dipping into my guilt in public. You know, the guilt about being white and comfortable in a developed country with clean water flowing from hoses and taps in car washes and kitchen sinks. And toilets. And retirement funds flowing into bank accounts. Do you know how rare that is in the wide wide world?
And supermarkets. Let's not even go there. We have so much food. So much water. So much, so much. Even our poor, even our homeless, don't worry about water, and if they want food, they can get it. I'm not saying homeless and poor people in the USA aren't miserable. I'm saying that they aren't skeletal, they aren't dying from starvation, and their children can get medical care.
We have myriad problems: hunger, homelessness, inadequate care for mentally ill, dread diseases, ignored veterans, abused animals, environmental causes, I could go on and on. I've chosen to focus my charitable attention on families—women, mostly, and their children—who are terrorized by a domestic partner and who have endured rape.
TERRORIZE is the correct word.
I interviewed a woman (I live in rural southern Oregon) referred to me by the local Women's Crisis Support Team, for an online newsletter I write for "friends" of this organization. We're talking grassroots here, no big budget, struggling to meet payroll, no PR firm, nothing but passionate people, men included, employees and volunteers, who work their asses off to prevent domestic violence and sexual assault. Many of the advocates who work directly with victims suffer post traumatic stress syndrome by association. And in truth, many of them have been victims, leading to firsthand knowledge they'd rather not possess.
In this case, a woman who had been rescued from almost-certain death by this organization 14 years ago, happened to run into one of the advocates who delivered her from evil. She told me her story. I wrote it and asked her to review. She added volumes, then told me there are still things she can't bring herself to say. My guess is she's talking about endless rape and sexual degradation in addition to the terrors she describes. Read it and believe, then please support WCST or your local women's shelter. They save women and kids every single day.
The following is a lightly edited account of one woman's domestic abuse and how WCST came to her rescue. WCST's executive director assures me that as bad as the situation is, it is not unusual. "This happens more than we will ever know," says Krisanna. If you've not experienced domestic violence, or had personal contact with someone who has, you will not believe situations similar to this are happening in your neighborhood. One difference between now and the 1980s and 90s, when most of this occurred, is that law enforcement response is better now.
Sharon, in her own words...
