Articles

Stop The Silence


I’m asked to support a lot of causes. That’s what happens when you participate in your community. Some causes are good ones. Other’s don’t really interest me. Today I was asked by Sarah Robinson to support the 12 for 12k Stop The Silence Cause. I said yes.

I know Sarah from my twitter friends. She was actually referred to me by Laura Roeder (@lkr). Sarah (@sarahrobinson) was looking for bloggers to support Stop the Silence, and Laura sent her info to me. I happily agreed to blog.
So let’s talk about this. Stop the Silence is a charity that is doing difficult and heartbreaking work. They deal with the sexual abuse of children. In the U.S. one out of every 4 girls and one out of every seven boys are sexually abused by the age of 18. The mission of Stop the Silence is to expose and stop child sexual abuse and help survivors heal worldwide.
You would think it was a stranger abusing our children. Sadly, the majority of child sexual abuse are carried out by people in their lives they trust. Family, friends, teachers, preachers – you get the picture. The child often feels they’ve done something wrong to cause this trusted person to abuse them.
I am a survivor of child abuse. I’m one of those 1 in 4 young girls. It was a family member, he’s now dead. I could not tell anyone, they would not have believed me. I suffered a lot of guilt. I still have trouble reading books about some child who has been abused – it’s hard to write this post. But write it I must.
It’s important that as adults we support our children. We teach them to be respectful, loving, honest, good children. And we MUST help those who have had their trust betrayed.
Stop the Silence works in seven basic categories:
) Support for direct services,
2) Advocacy,
3) Community Education and Outreach,
4) Training,
5) Policy development,
6) Research and evaluation,
7) Other direct measures (e.g., appropriately dealing with offenders).
12 for 12k supports one charity a month. February is Stop The Silence Month. The 12 for 12000 Challenge is a combination of of social media and fund raising that aims to change the lives of millions worldwide. Twitter is part of my social media community – and hopefully yours too.
You can find the link to donate (and we’re only talking $10 here) at http://12for12k.org You can read more about Stop the Silence at http://www.stopcsa.org

Look around you — one out of every four girls will be abused. You can help stop that.

3 Comments

  1. Danny Brown on February 21, 2009 at 12:48 am

    Deb,

    Thank you so much for having the courage and strength to talk about your experiences. This month’s charity has been eye-opening in so many ways, and shows just what a difficult but ultimately worthwhile job Stop the Silence is doing.

    We’re proud to be supporting them and proud to know people like you that are speaking out to make that difference.

    Bless.

    Danny Brown
    Founder, 12for12k
    http://www.12for12k.org



  2. James A Woods on February 21, 2009 at 1:03 am

    Deb,

    Thank you so much for your support of 12for12k and Stop the Silence. It takes guts to speak openly about your personal experience with abuse. My prayer is that your honesty will help to save people from abuse.



  3. Deb Brown on February 21, 2009 at 1:37 am

    Danny,
    You are welcome. It’s taken me over 30 years to begin to even think about speaking out. 12 for 12k got me to open my mouth. Now maybe I can stop putting food in it (I know why I’m fat). You just never know what will move someone. Thank you so much.

    James
    I pray too that my small single voice will allow someone else to have their say and Stop The Violence too. Thank you for your prayers.