Please consider donating your cell phone to our local community shelter(s) for domestic violence via our Voice to Victims collection drive.
It can save a life! How is your cell phone donation used? In two critical ways:
Your donation acts as a lifeline. How? Imagine being a victim walking to your car one evening and your abuser appears out from the dark. You are trapped. Your only escape is to call for help. Because of the generosity of someone you don’t even know, you have a phone in your pocket programmed to dial 911. With the push of a button, help is on the way. (From: www.juliancenter.org) THANK YOU for another successful phone drive in 2022 of over 170 phones! THANK YOU for a successful 2020-21 donation drive! 411 phones were donated to help save lives of domestic violence survivors! |
TO DONATE YOUR PHONE(S) :
DROP BOXES- From January 4- January 16, 2022 * Carmel Clay Public Library at Merchants' Square 2140 E 116th St, Carmel, IN 46032 Hours: Monday-Thursday 9am-8pm, Friday 9am-6pm, Saturday 9am-5pm, and Sunday 1pm-5pm. * Carmel Police Department 3 Civic Square, Carmel, IN 46032 Lobby open Monday- Friday 8am-6pm Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts & Cub Scouts can earn a patch! Include a self-addressed, stamped (postage paid) envelope with your donation, and a Voice to Victims logo patch will be mailed to you for your participation. Please indicate your troop or den number & if you need more than one patch for the donation of multiple phones. |
What is domestic violence?
Domestic violence is the willful intimidation, physical assault, battery, sexual assault, and/or other abusive behavior as part of a systemic pattern of power and control perpetrated by one intimate partner against another. It includes physical violence, sexual violence, threats, economic, and emotional/psychological abuse*, including stalking.
*What is psychological abuse? Humiliation in public &/or private, controlling what the victim can/cannot do, withholding information, isolating the victim, denying the victim access to money and basic resources, stalking, undermining the victim's confidence and/or sense of self worth, convincing the victim they are crazy. (From NCADV- National Coalition Against Domestic Violence) |
Domestic Violence in Indiana
|
Dating Abuse & Teen Violence
|
Male & LGBTQ Violence:
*Statistics may vary depending on different studies |
Domestic Violence Deaths up 86% in Indiana, Local Organization Says- by Brett Kast Aug. 3, 2020
https://fox59.com/news/crimetracker/domestic-violence-deaths-up-86-in-indiana-local-organization-says/
https://fox59.com/news/crimetracker/domestic-violence-deaths-up-86-in-indiana-local-organization-says/
Stories of Survivors
Jane’s Story
Taken from: https://www.thehotline.org/2013/09/30/janes-story/ September 30, 2013 At twenty-five, I managed a gift shop, owned my own car, established good credit and maintained a very active social life. At twenty-seven, I married a man from a small country town. Being so swept away, I ignored the other side of “Prince Charming.” As time passed, the abuse became more frequent and more intense. Each time I found employment, he would become unbearable, including phoning me at work and yelling obscenities. Six years of marriage took us to a rented house in the country. I was not allowed to use his car, even to take our two children to the doctor for emergency care. February 1987, he pinned me down and began choking me. During the next year, I obtained a car and began planning my escape. He had the phone disconnected. April 1988, the abuser flew into a rage, so I took our two children and drove 15 miles to a pay phone. Every shelter I contacted was full. I had nowhere else to turn because over the years, I had become alienated from my family and friends. After walking around the grocery store for 4 hours, I returned home. Three days later, after the abuser’s usual early morning rage, our son left for school and our three year old daughter was hiding under blankets, shivering and crying because she was so frightened of her own father. My husband left for work and I took our daughter, drove to a phone and called a domestic violence shelter. I was told to take my son out of school, pack what I could in my car, and I drove 30 miles to the nearest city. In the three weeks my children and I were at the shelter, we began to restructure our lives. I found employment, housing, childcare, counseling and legal advice. Because the domestic violence shelter was there, my children and I are alive. |
Joanne’s Story
Excerpts taken from: https://www.domesticshelters.org/articles/true-survivor-stories/survivor-joanne Aug 06, 2018 He alienated my friends and family. But when we did see people, we seemed like the perfect couple. I didn’t want to air my dirty laundry—if I did there would be hell to pay when I got home. He controlled the finances. He wanted to make sure I had no means to leave. Our property and bank accounts were all in his name. When we bought a home in the suburbs he refused to put my name on the contract. It was hard for me to admit that verbal and emotional abuse were abuse. I didn’t accept that I was abused until it became physical. When I was eight months pregnant with my second child, we had a heatwave. I was hot and uncomfortable, and I wasn’t going anywhere, so I stayed in my pajamas all day. He got so upset he grabbed me by the neck and hung me up against the wall. I was afraid for my life. I grew up with a cousin—she and I were like sisters—and when she moved to America we reconnected instantly. I felt that I had someone to confide in. She and I talked a lot at my house, and one day my husband used a word that was in my cousin’s vocabulary, not his. It struck me as odd and I suspected he was recording our conversations. When he was at work I accessed his tool room—it took me more than three hours to open the five locks on it. I discovered a tape recorder connected to our phone line. After I confronted him he admitted that he had been recording my calls for the entire seven years of our marriage. ... Somehow, I was able to get out from under him. I flew down the stairs, grabbed the cordless phone and called 911. I ran out to the street, bleeding, with a broken nose, a broken mouth, cuts and bruises. The phone lost reception, but the call had gone through. When I heard sirens, I ran toward the noise. The police took me home and took my ex to jail. |
Waqas' Story (male)
Excerpts taken from: https://www.domesticshelters.org/articles/true-survivor-stories/survivor-waquas Sep 05, 2018 My ex took financial control. She moved to Maryland and transferred to her company’s Washington, D.C., office, which meant I had to quit my job and move to D.C. She told me that she would manage our money so I didn’t have to worry about finances. Within a month of moving, her parents came to visit and didn’t leave for several months. I was making six figures and my ex was giving me an allowance of $100 a week for gas and food. I didn’t know where our money was going—it turns out it was going to her and her parents. I had two businesses—a hair salon and a consulting firm. With checks from them and an income tax refund, one month I had deposited $50,000. Two weeks later she told me we didn’t have enough money to pay our mortgage. I didn’t know what she was talking about. She was funneling off all the money into her own bank account. She acted like I needed to make more money. She monitored my phone and computer. On our wedding night she gave me a new cell phone. I found out later she was tracking who I was calling on that phone. At one point her brother gave me some CDs of Photoshop. And, along with Photoshop, I had unknowingly installed a key-logging program that tracked everything I was typing and sending it to her brother. She limited access to my family and friends. We would visit my ex’s family, but not mine. I would call my parents on Sundays and she would rush me off the phone. And all of my friends were her friends’ husbands—I didn’t have any friends of my own. Because of the stereotype that …domestic violence is only a man beating a woman, it was a struggle for me to reach out for help. I couldn’t turn to my friends since she convinced everyone that she was the victim. When I finally called the National Domestic Violence Hotline, I still thought domestic violence only happened to women. I told them I was a man but I didn’t know where else to turn. I was in terrible shape. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, I had anxiety and PTSD. They spent 20 minutes convincing me that what I was experiencing was, in fact, domestic violence. |