Sexual Assault Survivors Support

one_voice

(20,043 posts) Sat Feb 15, 2014, 10:48 AM Feb 2014

Wanted to put this here...

don't know if everyone knows about this--

“I am proud to stand with survivors, advocates and members of the criminal justice community to send a powerful message to other survivors: ‘We hear you. You have suffered enough. Your healing—and pursuit of justice—are our priorities.’
”
— Mariska Hargitay, Founder & President

http://www.joyfulheartfoundation.org/?gclid=CM64wdS3zrwCFUcaOgodfGoABg

about joyfulheart...

When Mariska Hargitay started playing Detective Olivia Benson on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit fourteen years ago, the content of the scripts, as well as the work she did to prepare for the role, opened her eyes to the epidemics of sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse. What she learned was staggering:

One in three women report being physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend at some point in their lives.1
Every two minutes in the United States, someone is sexually assaulted.2
More than five children die every day in this country as a result of child abuse and neglect,3 and up to 15 million children witness domestic violence in their homes each year.4

But what really opened her eyes—and subsequently, her heart—was the fan mail she received. The letters didn't say, "I love your show. Can you send me an autographed picture?" They said, "I was raped when I was fifteen. I'm forty now and I've never told anyone." Survivors were disclosing their stories to her, many for the first time.

The fact that these individuals were revealing something so personal to someone they knew only as a character on television demonstrated to Mariska, and to all of us, how desperate they were to be heard, believed, supported and healed.

Her response was to create Joyful Heart.

*snip*

http://www.joyfulheartfoundation.org/about-us/our-story