Empowering survivors of sexual crimes to find their voice, advance their healing and educate others.
Education | Prevention | Advocacy | Support
Survivors Speak®
Empowering survivors to share their stories through specialized professional training in public speaking and team building, allowing them to advance their own healing while helping to educate audiences of all kinds.
“Being part of the Survivors Speak team lets me feel a sense of community. We are connected in so many ways…body, mind and soul. I’ve found people like me. The perpetrator took away my innocence, but he can never take away my spirit.”
Community Outreach and Advocacy
Engaging individuals in the community, in the legislature, at businesses, corporations and organizations to work together to create real and meaningful change.
“We all have a role to play…remember this is personal, there is no such thing as ‘not in my neighborhood.’ Sexual crimes affect us all; our mothers, our fathers, our sisters, our brothers, our friends, our co-workers and our children.”
Safe Student Initiative®
Educating students from middle school to college through age-appropriate, survivor-led interactive programs including safe and unsafe touch, sexual respect, healthy relationships, consent, bystander intervention and rape culture.
“Our students were moved by how brave the speakers were for sharing their personal stories. Hearing from survivors firsthand will have a lasting impact.”
Escape Alive
Survival Skills®
Training women and girls to stay safe physically, emotionally and intellectually through personal prevention strategies, confidence-building skills, awareness tips, and kick, strike and blow techniques.
“I can’t say enough great things about this program. I attended with two friends and our daughters and we couldn’t stop talking about what an amazing experience it was. To say we walked away feeling empowered is an understatement. Thank you for giving us an afternoon we will never forget. ”
Duty Trumps Doubt™
Changing perspectives through our trauma-informed video and survivor-led presentations specifically designed to help law enforcement, medical personnel, legal professionals and society as a whole, to better understand victims of sexual crimes.
“Everyone was highly impacted by your stories. The team definitely wants to continue our partnership moving forward.”
Spotlight
No matter the challenges, our work continues…
We adapted to 2020 challenges by:
graduating 5 new Survivors Speak Outreach Team Members through our socially distanced workshop
training our survivors to lead our virtual programs
developing virtual Safe Student Initiative programs for middle schools through college
creating a condensed virtual version of our Escape Alive class for awareness tips and escape strategies
assembling a panel of experts to lead virtual discussions about sexual crimes
collecting undergarments for hospitals to provide to victims following their assault
hosting zoom cocktail and coffee hours with our team of 67 Survivors Speak Outreach Team Members to stay connected
growing our private Facebook group for survivors only
We look forward to continuing our important work into 2021 following CDC Guidelines during this pandemic.
#voice2change
In 2007, our founder, Donna Palomba’s case was the impetus for the removal of Connecticut’s statute of limitations on sexual crimes with DNA evidence.
“Donna has not only fought back from a vicious assault, she has made this change in the law a part of her personal mission to improve the treatment of victims and the pursuit of justice,” the Governor said. “Her story – ‘Jane Doe No More’ – is told on her web site, www.janedoenomore.org. The site also has important resources and links for assault victims. Her advocacy for this change makes her a true Connecticut hero and I salute her.”
