By Amy Slater-Ovadia | Director of Development
Women's Spirit work is so much to so many! So many women have lost their lives due to gender-based violence in Israel. Research continues to show that women who suffer from violence find it almost impossible to leave the violent cycle without the establishment of financial security for themselves and their children!
Crossing the Street makes a significant impact into lives of women victims of violence.
In 2018 we established our first ever group of Russian-speaking immigrants' survivors of violence in cooperation with the Domestic Violence Treatment Centre in Haifa. The group consisted of eight women, focusing on empowerment and had two parts: The first part was carried out by the Social Worker of the Center and dealt with issues of immigration, adaptation and empowerment. The second part was our occupational empowerment. We adapted and translated our materials into Russian. We have much more to do but thanks to Global Funding we have begun!
Crossing the Street has "crossed" to Nahariya, our partnership with the Department of Welfare has begun in earnest and our first employment/empowerment course is under way!
In addition, our work in Lod has expanded! In conjunction with the Chicago Community center we are holding our first employment course with simultaneous translation from Hebrew to Arabic. Lod is one of the poorest city in Israel today. Thanks once again to Global Giving we are able to "Cross the Street" to them!
In October we began an employment course serving women victims of incest. Women victims of violence have many things in common and women victims of incest have even more. We chose to hold a course for incest victims in order to meet their different needs. Tamar D. the case worker has extended the length of the course and has ensured that all the participants are with a volunteer mentor (something that usually occurs after completion of the course).
In 2018 we marked a decade of service with a conference on "Economic Violence - Characteristics, Patterns and Tools for Coping". In addition to the over 400 attendees from professionals in the field, lay people, politicians and women victims of violence, we had the world renowned Professor Angela Litwin of University of Texas who is known for her work with "coerced debt" of women victims of violence deliver the keynote address. We have been asked to hold a number of lectures and round table discussions in 2019 – and are planning our next conference in early 2020.
On the International Day of Poverty, we participated in a Knesset meeting on the subject of "unregistered work" women who have to work for cash so that their right to child support will not be violated, as part of the coalition to ensure the payment of child support payments. The meeting took place in the Committee for the Advancement of the Status of Women. We emphasized that a woman who suffers violence are forced to become financially dependent when she works "under the table", with low wages, and no social benefits and pension.
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