Imagine Life Without Violence

I learned about under-utilized SI grant opportunities for Imagine Life Without Violence events. They are looking for events with hands-on participation that raise awareness or increase awareness of SI and have measurable outcomes.

Oregon has one of the highest occurrences of human trafficking – this workshop talked about different kind of events to bring awareness to violence against women and girls.

Our keynote speaker on day 2 was Theresa Flores, a trafficking survivor with a story that was unbelievable: briefly, in the late 70’s as a 15 year old Irish Catholic girl in an upper middle class family, she was blackmailed by a fellow student, and was trafficked by this fellow student for 2 years, sneaking in and out of her own home to protect her family from the shame the blackmailer threatened.  She has now begun a program called SOAP where bars of soap with information on how to contact and get help are placed in hotels/motels.

I have talked with Baker County, and will be reaching out to Wallowa County to see if she is someone we might look at trying to bring here to talk to our high school and college students and to meet with hotel owners along the I-84 corridor.

They sell pins, first it was the shooting star, now it’s the hand. They are sold for $10 and they support Imagine Life Without Violence.