Please visit lovely tangobaby at her blog. She has opened her heart is doing some important work with a single mother, Kelaya, and her children (nine, seven, and two months old). She has fled from an abusive husband and is looking for permanent shelter and a job. You can learn more about her and her family and how you can help here and more updates about her progress here.
The Bay Area has many outstanding organizations that help women like Kelays but unfortunately they are all running at or beyond their capacity. Here are ways you can help:
- You can help Kelaya directly via the Paypal button tangobaby’s sidebar or writing her a note here. Tangobaby will personally deliver your note.
- Donate to one of these excellent San Francisco Bay Area organizations:
Support Network for Battered Women – The mission of the Support Network is to empower our diverse community to live free from domestic violence. Our services include a 24-hour toll-free crisis line, an emergency shelter, counseling, information and referrals, support groups, safety planning, legal services and community education presentations. Staff and volunteers also contact police reported victims of domestic violence to inform them of their rights and resources. All Support Network services are completely confidential, are either free or low-cost and are offered in both Spanish and English.
Haven Family House in Menlo Park provides safe transitional housing and comprehensive, on-site support services for up to 15 homeless families at a time in one- and two-bedroom apartments. Haven Family House was completely rebuilt in 2000, and includes an internet-connected computer tutoring room where volunteers help children with homework and other learning activities. There are several spaces for parent workshops and volunteer activities. Haven Family House has one of the few free, licensed childcare centers in the nation for toddlers and preschoolers to be housed in a homeless shelter. Adult residents are assigned chores to help maintain a hospitable environment; families prepare their own meals from a fully stocked pantry. Over 80% of program graduates are rapidly and permanently re-housed.
Raphael House, conceived as the first shelter for children and families experiencing homelessness in Northern California, provides an environment of loving support where families and children are able to restore and strengthen family bonds as they move toward brighter more hopeful futures. More than 17,000 individuals have passed through our doors where they have received the necessary tools to set in motion a cycle of renewal and growth. Today Raphael House provides a spectrum of full family support, including After School, ChildReach and AfterCare services where we partner with parents to engage the hearts and minds of the whole child as they experience the world around them.
- Find and support similar organizations near you. Domestic violence is a universal problem that crosses all cultural, social, geograpic, and financial barriers.
Thank you.
4 comments:
Domestic violence is a stain on our human condition. I have done my bit to raise awareness of it by curating films that touch upon the subject when I used to work in the arts. And in the next few days I will be posting a review on 'The Bride Price', a novel that also deals with women's situation, but in this case in Nigeria. It is laudable what bloggers like you and TB are doing and I commend you for it. Many thanks.
Greetings from London.
Dear Cuban,
The more I learn about you, the more impressed I am with the choices you have made in your life. I look forward to your review of "The Bride Price".
Hi Dutchbaby. Found you by way of Tangobaby. THANK YOU for this post. We have been trying to get people to notice this issue. We are in SF Bay Area and trying to help moms-in-need like Kelaya by helping the organizations directly with items that they really really need. We could really, REALLY us the help spreading the word. Check us out? -Lisa
Hello Lisa,
I did check out your blog - you developed a great resource. Thank you.
Everybody, go check out helpamother.org, and better yet, do one thing they suggest.
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