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How Did I Get Here? Hurricane Maria and a Resilient People

March 6, 2022 By TheVillageLady Leave a Comment

In 2018 Hurricane Maria left a trail of devastation in its path, leaving very few structures intact. One of the structures that succumbed to Maria’s high winds was my grandparents’ home. The home where I grew up during most of my childhood. Where weekday mornings caught me running late for school. Where friends walked by calling out my name asking if I was ready only to eventually give up. The few friends who waited struggled to understand what kept me preoccupied for so long, every day! 

They also eventually left, not wanting to arrive late at the school. If a student arrived late, if it was at the government school (equivalent to an intermediate school) the headmaster would be waiting in the doorway with a belt in hand. Yes, we had corporal punishment at school and the hits weren’t spanks in the hand, they were leather belt lashes across the back. I somehow made it before the lashes were handed out. One time, I got a beating not because I was late but because I was asked to take out some rubbish; on my way back, I entered through the only opened door where the late students were in line to get their beatings. The headmaster did not believe I was early and gave me three lashes. That was embarrassing. Good memories and bad memories all happened at that house

It’s there that almost all my childhood memories are linked. It was in the halls of that house where we packed bags and suitcases lined the hallways in preparation to emigrate to the states. It’s the space where I barely slept that night because the excitement of getting on an airplane was better than any sleep. That house holds the treasured moments I spent with my grandmother. The amazing thing is, my grandparents never finished high school yet they built that house from working hard at menial jobs in St. Thomas where they lived for several seasons. When I returned to Dominica in 2019 to celebrate my father-in-law’s life, the evidence of the destruction of hurricane Maria was still visible. Our home, like many others in the village, still lacked a restored roof. The pain of seeing the legacy of my grandparents’ hard work uninhabitable strained my soul. Our village has been rebuilding. Devastations from hurricanes aren’t new. My village is made up of resilient people who know how to rally to rebuild. I know village life. 

I grew up in a community that lacked certain comforts and amenities. What we lacked in ease or comfort,  we made up with ingenuity and community. My grandparent’s legacy may have been gutted by Mother Nature but what they have taught and shown me through their examples, no force of nature can destroy.

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Dominica, empoweredwoman, freedom, healingthroughstorytelling, islandgirl, mystory, owningmyself, story, storyteller, storytelling, villagelady, women

Child Marriage is Legal in The United States: Protect Women and Girls

March 3, 2021 By TheVillageLady Leave a Comment

*triggering content**

Women and girls around the world and in the United States continue to experience abuse at significantly higher rates than men. Child marriage, a form of abuse that was once widely accepted is getting much-needed attention to put an end to the practice.

Sadly, child marriage is still widely practiced in the United States. Girls as young as 11-years old are and have been allowed to legally be married often, to adult men, with their parent’s permission.

In the United States alone, more than 200,000 minors were married between 2000 and 2015; most were girls, more than 80% were married to an adult male. -FRONTLINE

To date, only four states have completely banned underage marriages. Some states have minimum age requirements, but built-in loopholes that include parental consent can circumvent the requirement. The Tahirih Justice Center a national, non-profit organization that aims to end violence against women and girls shared, “18 states, still have no age “floor,” meaning that as long as exceptions ate met, a child of any age can be married.”

Reports have highlighted that some parents, who want to avoid the stigma of their daughters becoming pregnant out of wedlock, are more inclined to give parental consent for their underage daughters to get married.

Sadly, child brides often get stuck in a continuous cycle of abuse. Typically, they “cannot get divorced because they are underage, many women shelters will not take anyone underage and landlords will not rent to minors.” -SherryJohnson

Usually when we see women who have escaped this series of abuse their trauma has been compounded.

This is happening and it is probably legal in your state. Young girls and women are hurting. Get active. Get involved. Protect women and girls.

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Filed Under: Activist, Blog, women Tagged With: childabuse, endchildmarriage, girls, legalabuse, protectgirls, protectwomen, statesponsored, teenmarriage, women

Silencing Women with Shame: The Sin of Sex and Pregnancy

August 9, 2020 By TheVillageLady Leave a Comment

Silencing Women With Shame: The Sin of Sex and Pregnancy

by Frances Robin

I manage a maternity home for pregnant and homeless women. The other day someone left the comment, “those women need to keep their legs close.” The comment is an example of the negative dialogue that runs through the minds of some about women who are pregnant and unmarried. 

Some people have bought into accepting and making excuses for hate, harsh judgments, and negative criticism of others. For too long, women have suffered under shame, and abandonment particularly by other women for mistakes, and decisions outside of traditional or political norms.  

Women and girls aren’t born to eventually become victims of abuse. For too long we’ve shamed and silenced the abused, the imperfect, the unmarried woman, or the pregnant teen. For too long, girls, children, and women have borne the burden and secrecy of those who preyed and pleasured themselves on their innocence? For too long, the innocent and abused have not been believed. For too long their cries for help have gone unanswered because they were expressed in unexpected ways? And, for too long, we’ve chosen to believe and forgive the abusers. 

We’ve chosen to remain judgemental of the actions of the women who have been trafficked from childhood, some by their own parents! We have accepted a false sense of security in promise rings for fear of facing the fact that we ourselves, may have opened our own legs outside of marriage. We hold our children and others to a standard that many of us could not keep.

  

What if a woman decides to voluntarily open her legs and does so repeatedly? Does her life cease to have value? What if she terminates? Is she no longer deserving of love and forgiveness? Who has given authority to apply judgment that disqualifies another from experiencing genuine, authentic love? No human holds that authority. 

Why do we communicate a message of unworthiness to women? In a time when we know that the countless women who were sent to grandma’s house weren’t on a vacation but a sentence. A sentence that ended with either termination or giving away of a life. A sentence for some that have caused irreparable mental and emotional damage. To the millions of people suffering from guilt and shame, you are worthy. Stand up! Tell your story. Share your truth. You were not meant to live in the shadows or under the weight of someone’s judgment.

To the countless women and men who have suffered and endured pacifying your parent’s ego to be a good boy or good girl, free yourselves. Your parents are adults. Let them work out their own mistakes. Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy writes, “We have all been broken by something. We have all hurt someone and have been hurt. We all share the condition of brokenness even if our brokenness is not equivalent. Our shared brokenness connects us. Our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing.

We can embrace our humanness, which means embracing our broken natures and the compassion that remains our best hope for healing. Or we can deny our brokenness, forswear compassion, and, as a result, deny our own humanity. So many of us have become afraid and angry, fearful and vengeful that we’ve thrown away children, discarded the disabled, and sanctioned the imprisonment of the sick and the weak — not because they are a threat to public safety or beyond rehabilitation but because we think it makes us seem tough, less broken. We’ve submitted to the harsh instinct to crush those among us whose brokenness is most visible. But simply punishing the broken — walking away from them or hiding them from sight — only ensures that they remain broken and we do, too.”― Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy

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Filed Under: General Tagged With: abortion, christianity, crisis, heal, healing, Judgement, justice, Pregnancy, pregnant, promise ring, rape, recovery, shame, trauma, women

Shame Cannot Silence a Warrior

July 18, 2020 By TheVillageLady Leave a Comment

Sometimes people with knowledge of our past will use Shame as a reckless weapon to silence and humiliate. We all understand that, “shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging.” -Brené Brown

But there is a power we all possess that is often hidden or untapped because we lead with shame and fear. But lady of purpose, there’s power in owning your story. Woman of power, your past is a testimony of your strength and resilience. As much as you would have preferred to have had a different experience, you are a witness to the world that you’re a champion.

A warrior, a conqueror over fear and shame. You have the power to overcome trauma, and pain of the past to inspire others, awaken to live out our passions, to love deeply, and live life to the fullest! Step into your life woman warrior and own it without apology.

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Filed Under: Blog, Gallery Tagged With: awaken, empower women, no fear, no shame, shame, silence, story, warrior, women, women helping women

About Homelessness

November 23, 2019 By TheVillageLady Leave a Comment

Images of a pregnant woman walking the streets wondering where she’ll spend the night are not something anyone can see without wanting to step in the help. Helping is almost impossible unless her story is told. Mothers in this state of crisis usually aren’t forthcoming with their stories or pleas for help. The urgency of a home is more pressing than telling someone who may or may not help. This is where we come in.

Most of us never really have had to deal with homelessness or the thought of not having a home. There is not one specific situation that leads women to the homeless, but rather a series of events. There is a cycle that needs to be broken in some instances to bring an end to homelessness. Some of the circumstances stem from aging out of foster care, job loss, illness, relocation, divorce, abandonment or a cycle of poverty, a cycle repeats.

A Purdue study found “when a family becomes homeless the entire family’s life, normalcy, sense of securing and whatever semblance of functionality that once existed is now completely disrupted and off-balance. Any routine or appearance of normalcy changes. The conditions of “normal” life, from mundane activities of daily living (regular showers or doing laundry) to the important job of getting a child to school, are brought to a sudden halt. Household foundations, however weak they may have been in the past, may become nonexistent once homelessness occurs.”

Whatever the circumstances surrounding a person’s or family’s homelessness, they are likely to worsen once homelessness becomes a reality. Even if job loss is the explanation for an individual’s homelessness, such an unexpected crisis can quickly worsen and can lead to depression, unemployment, and other conditions that will make it more difficult for a family to regain economic stability and a home. 

A woman who is pregnant and homeless doesn’t care about attending classes to get a pack and play or diapers.  She cares about getting a roof over her head before night falls. Whether it’s getting into a shelter, sleeping in a car, a quiet bathroom or a tent in the woods. These are her concerns. Programs like Carried To Full Term are necessary to help stabilize families in crisis as a result of homelessness. When families are given the support, resources, and tools like those offered by Carried To Full Term and similar programs, then and only then, will they be to focus on developing routines that include job searches and grocery shopping.

Click here to learn more about Carried To Full Term.

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: brightfuture, empowered, future, home, homelessness, hope, hopefilled, housing, keys, women, women #babies #children #housing #notype #lonely #abandoned #homeless #unwanted #pregnancy #hopeless #savinglives #family #maternity #homenonprofit #fathers #daughters, womenandbabies

She Wants a Roof over Her Head, Not Diapers

November 14, 2019 By TheVillageLady Leave a Comment

A women who is pregnant and homeless doesn’t care about attending classes to get a pack and play or diapers.

She cares about getting a roof over her head before night falls. Whether it’s getting into a shelter, sleeping in a car, a quiet bathroom or a tent in the woods. These are her concerns.

Too often when are women are given items as answers to bigger life problems. Diapers and pack and plays are necessary after or when she’s settled but not when she’s in crisis as a result of homelessness.

If you know of a woman who is pregnant or who has recently given birth, but doesn’t have consistent housing call 571-261-2838. Homes, like Carried To Full Term, have programs that are designed to equip women with the tools and resources to help her provide for herself and her family.

Click here to learn more about Carried To Full Term.

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Filed Under: Blog, Change Maker Tagged With: helpingwomen, homelessness, housing, livingintents, peoplehelpingpeople, women, womenandbabies

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