Dear Friends,
The Holiday season is an exciting time with lights, gifts and time with family... this Holiday season, we brought in festive cheer through our Giving Trees, Volunteer Appreciation event, and by continuing our passionate work to keep families and our community safe. Read on to learn more...
Do email your thoughts and comments to outreach@maitri.org outreach@maitri.org
Thanks to Santa!
At Maitri, putting a smile on our clients' face is a source of joy and satisfaction... the Maitri Giving Tree is an effort to do just that. Each year we collaborate with supportive organizations to decorate a Christmas Tree with wishes from the women and children we serve. This year, we are grateful to ParAccel Inc, Stanford's Center for South Asia and Thermofisher for their support and generosity that made our Giving Trees a success!
Volunteer Appreciation
Maitri's annual volunteer appreciation dinner was held this year on International Volunteer Day, December 5th 2011. Neena Jain, a Maitri volunteer shares her experience of her first ever Maitri gathering
I am thrilled to be a Maitri Volunteer and be a part of this great organization that is committed to helping people out in their darkest hours, for over 20 years. After hearing so much about Maitri (thanks to the WWW and the Independence day parade) I decided to be part of this organization as well and contribute to the community. What I liked is the fact that despite their busy schedules, there are volunteers actively working for a cause- to help reach the women and children out there who are in real need of support.
So, I joined my first meeting on December 5th as a volunteer and it was a fulfilling experience; to meet all these wonderful women and to understand their contribution and goals. It was eye-opening to hear their experiences. Their sharing had a deep impact. This monthly meeting was to exchange notes, share stories, happy and sad and to provide an insight into how things will be, moving forward, not to mention the lovely wine and dine session at a fellow volunteer's beautiful house!
My goal is to help and reach out as many women and children as I can, and I will be equipped to, once I complete the mandatory 40 hour training. Already looking forward to it as well as the next month's err...year's first meeting.
Cheers to the New Year!
Maitri volunteer interview for Violence Against Women Awareness blog
As part of ongoing efforts to spread awareness in community, our volunteer Shantha Ranganathan shared her experiences and information in a blog interview during Domestic Violence awareness month. Read interview here.
Meet a Maitri Volunteer
Volunteers are Maitri's back bone. This section features the profile and thoughts of one volunteer every issue- to know them and to be inspired
Abha Rao
"Rewarding and humbling..."
When I was a young girl, our neighbors built a guest house in their backyard which they rented out. The first tenants who arrived were a young, good looking family - parents and a small daughter. The husband quickly became popular in the neighborhood, since he was quite friendly, but we rarely saw the mother and child. Soon after they moved in, in the evenings we would hear a male voice, raised in anger; a little while later we would hear a woman crying. My mother approached the neighbor and asked her to address the issue, but she never did. After a while, the raised voice was followed by the sounds of beatings; the crying got louder and louder. And all this time, the husband went about his day, smiling at and chatting with the neighbors.
One day, unable to stand it any longer, my mother called the police. (This was at a time when these issues were routinely brushed under the carpet and when the police were uninterested in pursuing such cases.) She was fortunate enough to talk to a sympathetic officer, who immediately arrived and sternly reprimanded the husband and threatened to arrest him if he was ever called again. The shouting and the beatings ceased immediately, and although I cannot comment on the state of the marriage, we often saw the wife and daughter outside every now and then.
It was an early lesson I learned from my mother - that violence of any kind was unacceptable in any relationship, and that when one witnessed it, it needed to be challenged. This lesson stayed with me as I grew older and came to observe abusive relationships around me - friends, family, acquaintances - all of which my mother tackled head on.
It is easy for us to decide that something is not our problem. We can ignore it or even actively avoid what makes us uncomfortable. We can try and rationalize it because it's not happening to us, because it's none of our business, because we don't know what to do. But it is ALWAYS our problem. Even if we're not in a position to personally assist a victim of abuse, here's what we can do - Call the police. Let the victim know that someone is on her side. Contact an organization like Maitri. Do something.
Years later, when I finished my education and was looking for a place to volunteer, Maitri was an obvious fit. I've now been volunteering for 2.5 years, in which time I've worked with clients, conducted outreach, done office work, and done some legal research. Some clients have needed only a little help, perhaps a sympathetic ear, maybe some help getting them registered for a class, but others have required extensive assistance, battling court cases and working through the trauma of abuse. Watching these women achieve some measure of self-reliance and relief with Maitri's help has been, in equal measure, incredibly rewarding and humbling.
Announcements
New staff member
Maitri is pleased to welcome Nandini Ray as our Outreach Coordinator. With her passion for women's issues and belief that everyone should have a voice, she hopes Maitri will be a platform to reach out to the community and help women help themselves.
At Maitri, she will coordinate community outreach programs and represent Maitri in community events, work with ethnic and mainstream media to increase awareness about Domestic Violence, manage Maitri's newsletter, website content and social media endeavors, develop outreach material and reach out to the community to recruit volunteers for the Maitri team.
Nandini is multilingual in Bengali and Hindi. She is a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and a Masters in Journalism from Calcutta University, India. She is also a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the University Of Toronto, Canada. She has worked as a freelance journalist and volunteered for HealthTrust, SJB Child Development Center and First Five Santa Clara County's "School Readiness and Learning Together" program.
We wish her luck in this position!
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Justice Denied- a poem
The holidays are a particularly significant time to reflect upon the idea of home and the people that make a home together. The poem below, written by a woman Maitri served speaks to the shattering of this vision, a stark and dark reminder that there are some among us who have faced grave danger in their home, the violence taking new shapes and forms even after they leave. As the poet reminds us, the struggles never end but neither does the determination to face each day with new resolve.
Angry eyes my very being resents
Just yesterday he got me expensive presents.
Children cowering, crying lips quivering
I long for a life that is worth living.
Will tell the judge of all my pain
Broken bones tell tale of protest in vain,
You have no evidence, the courts will say.
Can't you see I carry it on me everyday?
You have probable cause that he has abused
I grant you protective order for safety to be used.
Why won't you make a finding of fact on this case?
They say shush! Don't cut off your nose to spite your face.
What about the children? He might really hurt them,
He is their father and gets to see them.
Sure he can see them but please make it supervised.
For now we will - you will pay the cost be advised.
Do you want to file for divorce with restraining order?
No, no, never. He will change; we will get back together.
I want my marriage to stay - just stop the abuse.
He served me with divorce papers, my wish was of no use.
Talked to DV counselors at my earliest,
Do you have children? How old is your youngest?
My son is two and a half years old, that's my baby.
He'll keep you in courts next sixteen years lady.
Then started the litigations-his newfound weapons
I struggled to make ends meet living on coupons.
Pay the lawyers; pay the courts but children you must wait,
I have no money for your stuffed toys and hand paint.
He'd thrown things at my little daughter
And at times shaken my baby son in anger,
He's raving mad now that I've left him,
I'm scared for my kids - this lava will scorch them.
You allege their dad abused your children.
Change custody! says Dr. Gardner of parental alienation.
If only he wasn't their dad wouldn't have I shunned him?
Warned my kids to stay miles away from him?
But courts demand that I talk to my abuser,
Co-parent, co-operate in courts to look nicer.
Why don't instead force him to stop abusing promptly?
For once be the dad that my kids deserve so badly?
Pleadings, discovery, court-ordered evaluations,
Opening, closing arguments and visitations,
Emergency motions and jury trial waiver
Reels of tapes and reams of paper,
Gaurdian-ad-litem and depositions,
Rule nisi hearings and continuations,
Terms I'd never heard before in my whole life,
But all I'd prayed for was to end my pain and strife.
He went to domestic violence class,
Wrote down what he did to me, all his actions low-class.
But when my lawyers asked him about it on stand,
He took the Fifth; courts could not force his hand.
My life and my kids' lives hurled around,
With his new weapon in courts he had found.
Why do the courts not tell him to move over?
Can't they see they give him more power?
Three years of non-stop pleadings and motions,
The courts blamed ME for protracted litigation,
Ordered me to pay his attorney's fee,
His lawyers and he celebrated with glee.
In capitalist America he owns a business,
Lives in half mil' house and drives a Lexus,
He can show on paper he earns little money,
Child support payment he pays puny.
He can't reach me now to slap and punch,
I am grateful for that to the courts as such.
Financial and emotional abuse goes unbridled,
Why courts allow and facilitate I'm bewildered.
At one time I did want him punished,
Put in jail, away, banished.
So dare not again he lift his finger,
But who cares about my pain and anger?
Justice was denied, courts reaffirmed my fears,
At a high price tag in dollars, and my tears.
Beaten down by the abuser and now the court,
Hope I'd held on to had been cut short.
Now it is very basic what I ask and I need,
Courts! Please... Oh please pay heed,
Let me leave in peace,
Let my kids grow up with ease.
Granted all doors on me are closing,
Then again isn't a dead end just a new beginning?
I've been through worse-- younger kids and money pinch.
Kids are getting older this last battle will be a cinch.
No help from the courts, they don't care.
Without consequences abusers continue to dare.
They're winning small battles but don't try to scare,
My baby will turn 18 soon, yes, I'll win the warfare!
About Maitri We are a free, confidential, referral nonprofit organization based in the San Francisco Bay Area, that primarily helps families from South Asia (Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka among others) facing domestic violence, emotional abuse, cultural alienation, human trafficking or family conflict. We are non-discriminatory in our services with respect to gender, race, color, religion, age, national origin, disability, and sexual orientation. For more details about us, please visit our website at www.maitri.org
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