LIFE

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. And with the scary statistic of 1 in 3 women being victims of domestic abuse during their lives, it's an important issue to be addressed. Fortunately, there are awesome girls standing up for the cause and we had the opportunity to speak with one last week.

Meet Grace Wickerson, the CEO and founder of Kickin' Violence, a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering youth in non-violence advocacy through service, education and martial arts. Here's what she had to say about standing up against violence...and about being a #girlboss: 

Girls' Life: What inspired you to start Kickin' Violence?

Grace: Kickin' Violence (KV) started as my Girl Scout Gold Award Project in 2013 as a way of using my years of martial arts training to combat a real-world issue: the existence of violence in the world around me. While you might not automatically equate martial arts to non-violence, the philosophies behind martial arts are actually those of self-defense and creating a more peaceful world. It was during this time that I experienced dating violence, and knew that it was necessary and important for me to raise awareness about the issue.

GL: What's been the hardest part of owning your own business?

Grace:  As a young person, it can be really hard to get people to take you seriously. I feel like I have had to work ten times harder to accomplish what I have, all while balancing schoolwork and other extracurriculars. Still, I wouldn’t trade what I do for anything. 

GL: Do you have any advice for other girls who want to start a business or non-profit?

Grace: First research the issue you want to solve or product you want to create and see whether it's been done before and if it was successful. Research allows you to brainstorm ways to do it better and opens opportunities for potential partners. (For example, I met a girl who also uses martial arts as a way of violence prevention and we've combined efforts to help prevent sexual assault and dating violence on college campuses.) I would then encourage you to tell other people about your idea to get feedback and support. Letting my friends know about the project and getting their approval really helped to validate the work I was doing and how impactful it was. Finally, go out into the community and do a test run of the project. Who knows, you might have a national movement on your hands! 

GL: Tell us about the Survivor Packs. How can we get involved?

Grace: Survivor Packs are care packages made up of 3 toiletries, a journal and a note of encouragement, and were created as my submission to the Jefferson Awards Foundation’s Lead360 Program, which empowers some of the most promising youth-led initiatives and amplifies their impact across the country. Out of over 5,000 submissions nationwide, KV and Survivor Packs were selected as one of the top three winners, and the winner in the Peace and Justice category. The project itself involves working with groups from all over the country to learn about domestic violence and then creating and donating packs to their local shelter. It's been running for about six months now and we are on our way to making about 100,000 of these packs worth by January 2017! 

If you want to get involved, visit our project page. It’s a basically a simple 4 step process that anyone can do and its a great opportunity for Domestic Violence Awareness Month:

1. Collect items
2. Write a positive and empowering message
3. Identify a domestic violence shelter to donate to.
4. Share your impact and educate your peers on domestic violence and sexual assault.

GL: And last question, how can girls help end the cycle of domestic violence outside of KV?

Grace: The number one thing you can do to help end domestic violence is to become informed on the issue and spread that knowledge to other people. Domestic violence is something that happens behind closed doors, so talking about it is what we need to do to shine light on the issue. Another thing that I would strongly encourage is for you to examine unhealthy relationship behaviors among your friends at school or in your community, and work to address them because a lot of those behaviors follow people into adulthood.

Also, look at how your school addresses dating violence and domestic violence and see if there needs to be education or awareness. I was able to do that through a student action team program which served as the group that raised awareness and lobbied school administration to make dating violence and sexual assault education a part of their curriculum. KV actually helps young people form these action teams. 

CLICK HERE to get involved and learn more about Kickin' Violence.

How are you helping to raise awareness about domestic violence this month? Let us know in the comments!
 

by Amanda Tarlton | 10/2/2016