Today I met a woman in the street on my way to work, sitting begging with a handwritten cardboard sign. Ordinarily I might have walked by, telling myself "well I cant help everyone".
But words on this sign leapt out at me: ' Domestic Violence '. That was the reason this woman had left her home - to flee a dangerous partner and a situation harmful to her child. And now she and her child found themselves
facing the streets.
But where were all the support services we hear about for women suffering domestic violence when we - wearing our white ribbons in solidarity - encourage them to speak out, to leave, to flee, and when we question and wonder
why they don't?
[See the video link below for a great TED talk from Leslie Morgan Stanley on 'Why domestic violence victims don't leave'.]
http://www.ted.com/talks/leslie_morgan_steiner_why_domestic_violence_victims_don_t_leave.html
Well the hostels she told me where children were accepted were all full. There were some services trying to help her sure, but there were no resources. Last night, she told me, she and her child slept behind a library. Libraries
are meant to be refuges for books, not children. Why should a woman and a child, in our prosperous, progressive country like this one, have to sleep on cold and dangerous streets, to escape violence?
Well once you know something it's difficult to un-know it. I now partly understand why people justify walking past those countless cardboard signs, not wanting to personalise those stories - feeling powerless to really 'help'.
But this woman I can help.
She needs shelter urgently until resources can be found, and for that she needs money. Money doesn't solve everything clearly, but $54 a night is the difference between a woman and child sleeping on the streets or in a warm,
comfortable and safe bed. It isn't much in the scheme of things.
But no-one, the woman told me, sitting in the middle of the financial district, had even stopped.
So I stopped, and now I'm asking you to
stop.
Stop and think about the bravery it takes to walk out that door, to pick your child up and leave, with nothing. Stop and think about the pride you'd have to swallow to write that cardboard sign and sit with a box on the street,
begging for people's compassion. And imagine, but for a wrong choice, that could be you, your sister, your friend, your daughter, your neighbour sitting there. And stop and think about whether you'd like to help, in whatever small way, because this time, you
can!
You can help take someone out of danger and help them setup a new, safer life for themselves and their child.
What guarantee is there this money will be used to help?
A: Ultimately we are all bound by the same social contract:
Trust.
I have been given this woman's first name, her phone number, and her trust. In return I will do what I can.
And in exchange for that trust, I will give you my gratitude, and the knowledge that you will have helped a woman and child Sleep Safe Tonight.
