Your help is needed! Join the U.S. national call to action to support sexual assault survivors and sexual assault programs impacted by the recent tsunami in the Pacific Territories. President Obama has declared the U.S. territory of American Samoa a major disaster after an undersea earthquake caused a tsunami and massive flooding that has reportedly killed over 100 people in the South Pacific Samoan Islands and the islands of Tonga. Please help us help them in their efforts to survive this disaster.
The Relief Fund for Sexual Assault Victims <http://www.relieffundforsexualassaultvictims.org/> (Relief Fund) was established in 2005 by U.S. national anti-sexual violence organizations (National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, The National Organization of Sisters of Color Ending Sexual Assault, National Sexual Assault Coalition Resource Sharing Project, National Sexual Violence Resource Center, and Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network) in order to address the needs of sexual assault survivors during and after disasters.Â
The Relief Fund is designed to:
1. Support the needs of sexual assault survivors 2. Support the needs of sexual assault advocacy program staff 3. Assist with expanded direct service capacity needs 4. Assist with prevention initiatives to protect evacuees from sexual violence 5. Support relocation/rebuilding efforts for flood-damaged sexual assault advocacy programs
Here is how you can help:
Donate now!
Join the effort to bring support and services to victims of sexual assault through a donation to the Relief Fund for Sexual Assault Victims <http://www.relieffundforsexualassaultvictims.org/> . There are three ways to donate (credit card, pay pal or check).
100% of donations will go to victims/programs in affected areas. Administrative costs are being donated by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. Funds will be allocated to state/territory or tribal sexual assault coalitions in the affected areas for dispersing the resources as needed within their respective regions. For questions about the application process, please contact the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) at: resources@nsvrc.org.
Spread the Word!
Please help us in building the fund by circulating this announcement. Additionally, a Relief Fund Flyer describing the fund is available online in pdf format <http://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/file/Projects_Disasters_Relief -Fund-Flyer-AS.pdf> to assist with getting the word out.
Help to prevent sexual violence in disasters!
Inform your community about the risk of sexual violence in times of disaster. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center in partnership with the Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault has developed a book entitled “Sexual Violence in Disasters: A planning guide for prevention and response” available in English <http://www.nsvrc.org/publications/nsvrc-publications/sexual-violence-di sasters-planning-guide-prevention-and-response> and Spanish <http://www.nsvrc.org/publications/nsvrc-publications/la-violencia-sexua l-durante-desastres-gu%C3%AD-de-planificaci%C3%B3n-para-la-p> . Submit requests for print copies to resources@nsvrc.org. Additionally, the NSVRC has created an online collection of disaster preparedness resources <http://www.nsvrc.org/projects/disasters> to assist communities in their educational and planning efforts.
There is no constant in life except change, as the saying goes. I’m pleased to announce that I have been offered a job as the new Violence Prevention Communications Coordinator for the Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault (WCASA). I will start later this week, as Sept. turns to October. I look forward to it with much excitement and anticipation.
Many of you may not be aware that for the better part of the last eighteen years violence prevention has been a passion of mine, but mostly a labor of love; MSR, being a modest non-profit, has never had the resources to pay me, or any of the other folks who’ve devoted time to the cause, what our time was really worth; we subsist on the occasional grant and the rare, but quite welcome, stipend for workshop facilitation (though the majority of workshops that we provide in the community we do for free in circumstances where the requesting organization are themselves so strapped for cash).
As such, MSR, and violence prevention has often had to take a back-seat to whatever was foremost on my agenda in terms of a rent-paying job; even for the past two years that I have been unemployed, thanks to the havoc wreaked upon the economy, the search for employment was so encompassing that energy left over for changing the world was a rare commodity. So with this new position at WCASA, I will have a chance not only to pick myself up by my own bootstraps, but also the rare opportunity to earn a living doing something that I believe in and to which I am committed.
This does not mean an end to my association with MSR, nor my commitment to continuing this blog space and podcasting and such. I intend to continue to posting on behalf of MSR; and of course I will continue to work in the community doing prevention work, with a focus on increasing awareness of and participation of men. But, I will be wearing two hats – one as a member of the state coalition, and one as a member of one of the oldest men’s anti-violence organizations in the country.
The first Men Stopping Rape podcast is now available for viewing; an audio-only version will be available soon; I am also working on setting up an RSS feed to make this and future podcasts available via the iTunes Store (for free of course).
This first episode is a brief overview of what I have in mind for future podcast topics and a bit of “men doing anti-violence work 101”, serving as an introduction to our organization and the basic philosophy behind our approach to men being involved in the eradication of violence.
Please feel free to leave a comment, or send feedback (response, rebuttal, questions, topic requests) via email [see above, right].
In all the hub-bub with departing from DaneNET and establishing the new digs here at Dreamhost, I recently realized that we had yet to set up new email access for those web visitors that would like to contact us. That has now been remedied…
Greetings! If you’re looking for Men Stopping Rape, Inc., in Madison, WI you have come to the right place. After over ten years having our web site hosted with DaneNET (an organization that provides technical support to non-profit organizations), we had to go packing, as they have decided to suspend their web hosting services. We thank them for a decade-plus of solid service, and are please to have the same excellent customer service from Dreamhost. They offer rock-solid support, free hosting for non-profits (!) and reasonable rates for other hosting services for personal and business sites (like this for example :).
As we move into our new digs, there will be some growing pains; I’ve implemented WordPress to help expedite the posting process, so look for more regular, topical articles or comments to be posted here in the near future. I’ll also be migrating our former site content, so if you’re looking for information about our workshops or scheduling a visit from us, please return. Or, if you have pressing questions, contact Stephen or Joe.