Help Secure Permanent Emergency Shelter

Mary Open Doors salutes its sponsors and donors as it continues its work and commitment to society as we come to the end of a very challenging year. Supporting our cause has proven your generosity. Greatness is not what you have it is what you have given. Striving to meet our goals would not be possible without your assistance and once more we take this opportunity to extend a sincere THANK YOU with gratitude and appreciation for your caring.

Presently, we continue to house women and children in need of a safe shelter. We are also establishing working relationships with new and old partners. We patiently continue to work on creating a new board of directors which is becoming a challenge. We need committed and dedicated people willing to serve without expecting much in return as we are an NGO. 

We are happy to welcome Mr. Kenny Chan who has come on board to assist us in writing proposals and developing our strategies for creating this board. Our major concern at this time remains “the purchasing of our shelter house, functioning paid staff  and to become stable and sustainable”. Attempts has been made to meet with Government ministers to help support our cause and so we remain hopeful that eventually we will be granted a subvention to help with our overhead expenses. We are thankful to our long term donors for their dedication and commitment as a little goes a long way.

We are experiencing a lot of emotional distress with the children we have put our focus here for this report.

Domestic Violence: The Psychological and Emotional Wounds transmitted to children 

Mary Open doors is currently responding to much more of these cases where they are becoming more prominent and visible signs of children suffering without coping skills to help them survive in our society is a major factor in the cycle repeating itself, crime and abnormal behavior is more evident with the rise of delinquent teens in our society.

Broken, depressed, angry and confused are the obvious signs of domestic abuse. These emotional and mental injuries are just as crucial as physical injuries and demand our care and attention; it is imperative that the psychological and emotional wounds suffered from these traumatic events also get addressed. When this is left unattended the outcome is vicious. Our present experience with adult and children being housed currently is that children are usually at the receiving end of the mother’s anger and confusion and inability to cope during this time.

As a result they make wrong choices because of a lack of guidance and protection and repeat what they experience. They rebel and seek comfort through the use of illicit drugs, alcoholic desires, and even suicidal thoughts. This lack of emotional support can also lead to heightened fear, anxiety, depression, anger, posttraumatic stress and social withdrawal. These wounds are completely undetectable by x-rays and too often go untreated.    

The Social Impact

Mary Open Doors continues to be one of the few shelters in the entire country with limited resources to meet its demanding needs of our community. We act as a form of intervention before that child is placed into the system or wheel off to the children's home. We continue to work on getting more assistance from the Government and teaming up with the existing agencies combating this problem in our society. Our strongest point being able to network with other agencies without duplicating efforts.

The psychological, emotional, and social impacts of domestic violence can linger long after the violence has subsided, and even after the victim has left the abusive partner it has a ripple effect that tears through the fabric of the victim’s life. All through it this experience the children are affected and have to rely on outside intervention to recover and heal. Being exposed to a different way of life without abuse gives them hope and keeps them focus on making a change for the family. They need Mary Open Doors and our environment to change views, opinion and behavior especially for the women for it to cause an effect on the children. Behavioral changes is a dire need for women and children. 

Beating the odds, overcoming and breaking the cycle through knowledge, intervention love and care Education is a powerful weapon which you can use to change the world (Nelson Mandela) 

Interview with 16 years old young man of a family being assisted at Mary Open Doors. 

Q.    How do you feel about your life before with your mom and dad together as a family? 

Ans:  As a whole family I could turn to both parent to ask questions and opinion and that made me feel equal with other kids. 

Q.   What happen to change this?

 Ans: “Parents could not agree because of us children that get into arguments. I think my dad especially did not like me because my mom always protected me from him. I think some of the reason why they split up was because of me, but mostly because he cheated on my mom and she found out. Just lately I came to realize what the situation was and got to hear from both of them, the two different stories and formed my own opinion.  My mom is a very strong headed person and I cannot understand her at all. She continues to make poor choices and at times I felt that I was the adult and had to be looking out for us -the children. I think my mom has been hurt a lot and she does not know how to get over it she is always angry and want things to be done her way. She always feels like people are taking advantage of us. She looks at only the bad in everything even if it is a good thing. She love us and want the best for us but cannot somehow handle her own self so she cannot give us what she knows is right because she is very very angry at herself and choices she has been making. My dad has moved on with other women and has other families. I hope and pray that I do not behave like him and leave my family when I grow up and become a man. 

Q. What are some of the feelings you experience since living in these situations? 

Ans:  Withdrawn, keep to myself and try to block out everything. I want to fix the things she has made wrong choices on but I know I cannot fix her and my mom thinks very different. Most of her choices I don’t agree with I cannot see why she would make some of the dumb choices it’s like she is a child and cannot see the wrong she is doing but I have to go along with it because I am a child and cannot do anything but go along with it. I am very concerned for my two other sisters and pray that nothing bad happens to them. 

Q.  Presently what is your relationship with your mom like? 

Ans:  I am separated from my mother. I realize I need to be separated so that I can accomplish my goal of finishing school and working to provide for them. I miss them even though we had tough times, sometimes it was ok. But we go into too much confrontation one of which ended in, me being taken to the police station and put in a cell for several hours. This made me feel that my mom did not love me and thinks of me as my dad as she is always telling me **** .So right now I still do not have a relationship I wish for with my mother or father. I am not happy I am not with them but staying with them will lead me to the wrong side of life I am positive that her wrong choices have made my life difficult. This is our second time at MOD.  From the time we started to have problems MOD was there for all of us until now.

 Q    What is MOD to you? 

Ans:  MOD is a place to help people and the word Mary is connected to women and Doors is open to all women.  

Q. How do you feel about mom and sisters being at MOD?

 Ans: I am relieved because they have a roof over their heads a place to sleep, food, and people to guide and help her realize if she does not change her attitude we the children could be messed up and cause us to suffer more. I can focus on school without worrying about what is happening to them, like her boyfriends taking advantage of her and my sisters or she put them in danger   or if they are getting wet when it rains and things like that. 

Q. What changes would you like to see happen for your mom and sisters? 

Ans: I am hoping she could return to school, get more counseling and be upfront and strict with us, advice on how to treat and take care of her daughters. She needs to try hard to change because her bad examples are already affecting my sister with the choices my sister is making regarding relationships now. My sister needs a good female role model because they are not strong and are easily lead astray to do wrong things. She gives us too much freedom and we feel like we are the adult; ex. My younger sister chooses when she want to go to school and the older sister friends and the world influence her a lot and mom has little control without anger or abuse beating. No discipline, the way she thinks always impatient not taking time to sort things out. She cannot accept she is wrong, always criticizing and trying to find bad in everything. I hope she will stay there so people could help her to help us. I love my mother.    

Thankfully, for both children and adults, these feelings of distress often subside if adequate support is received from family members, friends, mental health professionals, and other social networks. It is clear that the psychological and emotional wounds of domestic violence are devastating. They can potentially haunt victims for many years and rob them of the ability to live a rich, full life.  With your support and help we can continue to meet our goals especially of purchasing our shelter to ensure a secure and safe space for women and their children. There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way it treats its children! (Nelson Mandela)