Every Contribution Helps
Emphasizing Art and Community Involvement
We finance our initiatives by teaching instrumental music to our community members and through the support of our generous donors.
Initiatives
Mandated Reporter Courses
Mandated reporters are people working with children and are legally required to report any suspicions of abuse. They “identify three quarters of substantiated cases of physical abuse and sexual abuse, and two-thirds of cases of substantiated psychological abuse and neglect (US DHHS, 2010).”
FGM/C is an internationally recognized form of child abuse, however, there is no mention of it in mandated reporter training courses.
To address the lack of awareness, we are partnering with experts to revise the training content to include FGM/C specific training, as a means to utilize the reporting power of this demographic.
Certified Medical Interpreting
Medical Interpreting is a profession that involves providing real time patient to physician translations. It is effective at giving non-English speaking patients a voice within their healthcare, yet, Certified Medical Interpreters are a scarcity in California with only 738 in a state of 39.4 million people. A large barrier in this process is expense: We work with our multilingual communities, offering scholarships to fully fund the certification process and increase the accessibility of the profession. As many people at risk for FGM/C are immigrants or children of immigrants, Certified Medical Interpreters can positively impact these communities.
Social Media Awareness
Public opinion and awareness impacts both the occurrence of practices and the efficacy of legislative policy. Some of our posts include:
Inclusive Terminology- Destigmatizes FGM/C and rejects insensitive terms.
Paper Breakdowns- Increases people keeping up-to-date on FGM/C literature.
Common Practices- Discusses technical sides of FGM/C.
How to Help- Provides resources or techniques for viewers starting their advocacy.
Legislation- Educates people on the current state of local FGM/C laws and the manner in which they are enforced.
Survivor Stories and Healing
We interview and publish the experiences of gender-based violence survivors to increase accessibility of first-hand accounts. We use these primary sources, in addition to conducting public surveys, to determine action plans to prevent FGM/C and offer reparations and care to survivors.