The
Internship:
Going Deep
When
the next group of Men Stopping Violence interns comes through
our doors in early 2010, they will be continuing a two-decade-long
tradition by engaging in intensive, life-changing work that
we believe ultimately addresses our goal of ending male
violence against women.
We challenge men to look honestly at their own beliefs and
behaviors, gives them ways of holding themselves and other
men accountable for abuse and violence, and asks them to
go out into their communities, into their everyday lives,
and be agents of change.
The
men who have experienced MSV's Internship know all too well
how deep it can get.
The
most challenging thing about the Internship was learning
that I was contributing to the violence by doing nothing
to change it, said Bernard Ellis, who heard about the Internship
after Men Stopping Violence brought its Because We Have
Daughters ® program to his church.
Bernard
was part of the Internship group that worked together in
the spring of 2009. It included men who had already done
work on the issue of violence against women as well as those
who had not done any work at all. The Internship is an intense
experience that combines theory and practice. Interns participate
in classes and discussion groups with other men and work
on projects that are designed to eduate and inspire themselves
and others to create safer communities. MSV provides mentors
-- male and female -- who challenge and support participants
as they do the hard work of self-examination and advocacy.
Much
of that work focused on how culture is taught and supported
and how standard definitions of manhood fit within that
culture. Ultimately, women's safety depends on how we all
define culture and teach it.
Although
often it was a personal experience either with a loved
one who was victimized or through someone who was already
working for the cause that brought interns to Men Stopping
Violence, what they found here were ways to interact with
community and bring about cultural change. Through choices
about what information to consume and absorb, through opportunities
for teaching moments with friends, family, co-workers, fellow
people of faith, and through examination of our individual
power to create and destroy, the culture can be shifted,
moved, changed. Each intern acknolwedged a profound shift
in his thinking by the time the Internship ended.
I
thought of myself as a child of the new millenium who didn't
have negative prejudices toward women, said Leif Patterson,
25. The reality is that those beliefs are as present as
ever and even the most enlightened of us is impacted. Those
beliefs innudate our world and reach us through every aspect
of our daily lives.
Men
holding other men accountable is one of the most powerful
tools I have witnessed for combating domestic violence and
it can be used in the fight against debasement of women
in the media as well, he said.
Many
of the men who have finished the Internship over the years
have gone on to devote a significant portion of their day-to-day
lives to working on this issue.
Internship
graduate David Asher Burke works as Family Violence Intervention
Program Manager at the Georgia Commission on Family Violence.
My
involvement with MSV led me to the job I currently have,
he said. I now conduct statewide trainings on the issue
of batterers' intervention and violence against women.
I hope some of what I do at these trainings inspires.
My
involvement with MSV has taught me that choice is the most
powerful quality I posess, said Langston Walker, now coordinator
of MSV's Commuinity Restoration Program. I always have
a choice ...in how I respond when I'm driving in traffic
and someone cuts me off, in how I deal with a colleague
physically threatening me at work, my supervisor being verbally
abusive during a performance review, or practicing self
care when dealing with friends or women I am dating. MSV
has taught me that I am 100% responsible for my response.
Shyam
K. Sriram, a college instructor, used his work as coordinator
of the newly established Muslim Men Against Domestic Violence
(MMADV) as his Internship community project.
In
Islam, we believe that it is not about numbers; the ability
to even save one life is very dear to our Maker, said Shyam.
I hope and pray that if I can either prevent a woman from
ever being abused or stop the violence in a woman's life,
then I will feel content. Now, if that can be magnified
and multiplied, then I feel like I will have a larger role
to play.
I
noticed that participants, even though they were trained
as social workers, nurses to support patients and clients
in crisis situations, appeared to be somewhat uncomfortable
with this issue, said Andre Scott. Also during the discussions,
I heard participants
making excuses for the abusive individual
minimizing, blaming to take emphasis off of what took
place in the story.
The
opportunities for this shift are in their families, their
campuses, their workplaces, and their faith communities
and in their relationship with themselves. The power of
the Men Stopping Violence Internship is in its ability to
do many things at once: educate men about the pervasiveness
of abuse of women, challenge them to look within themselves
for the keys to culture change, provide tools and strategies
for holding themselves and other men accountable for a culture
of violence, and helping to create a community of men who
are willing to continue to work long after the internship
ends.
Muslim
Men
Against
Domestic Violence
Internship
Grad
Directs Group
Shyam
K. Sriram, coordinator of Muslim Men Against Domestic Violence
(MMADV), was recently featured in a Baltimore Examiner article.
Sriram,
who completed the Men Stopping Violence Internship in the
spring of 2009, helped form MMADV in partnership with Baitul
Salaam Network, a domestic violence prevention advocacy
organization in Georgia for Muslim women.
"We
need groups of Muslim men in every state and every major
city taking on the responsibility of educating other Muslim
men about their responsibilities," he said in the article.
"I echo again the motto of Men Stopping Violence; we,
Muslim men, are the work.
The
Art of Change
Benefit
Acknowledges
Work of Co-Founder
Photo
by: Al Viola
The
sanctuary of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of
Atlanta became a repository for music, movement, musings
and memories on Saturday, May 2, as the Men Stopping Violence
community of allies gathered to pay tribute to co-founder
Dick Bathrick (above).
MSV's
annual benefit concert featured singer and songwriter Doria
Roberts, The Chorus of Bet Haverim, Old Enough to Know Better,
percussion emsemble Sehwe Village, and
spoken-word artists Yolo Akili and Theresa
Davis. The show was emceed by Khaatim Sherrer
El and Leslie Fredman.
We
dare not use the word "retire" around Dick, who
will leave the staff of Men Stopping Violence later this
year. He will continue his justice-making and anti-violence
activities through his private counseling practice and his
work with various other groups, both locally and nationally.
Special
thanks to:

and
Jackie
and
Jeffrey Toney
for
their support of this event.
Article
Describes
MSV Model
for Mobilizing
Men to End VAW
Community
accountability is the foundation of the work that Men
Stopping Violence does to help increase the safety of
women and girls. An article published in the February
2008 issue of the journal Violence Against Women
explains the philosophical framework MSV uses to
do this work and that framework's relationship to the
organization's programs.
The
article, "Deconstructing Male Violence Against
Women: The Men Stopping Violence Community-Accountability
Model" was written by MSV staffers Dick Bathrick,
Ulester Douglas and Phyllis Alesia Perry.
Read
the article.
Men
Stopping Violence Contributes to Book on Work With Men
of Color
Men
Stopping Violence has contributed a chapter to the recently
published second edition of Family Violence and
Men of Color: Healing the Wounded Male Spirit, edited
by Ricardo Carrillo and Jerry Tello.
The book's editors compiled
writings that examine the interplay between ethnic and
cultural identification, sexism and violence against
women. In the chapter "African American Men Who
Batter: A Community-Centered Approach to Prevention
and Intervention," Ulester Douglas, Sulaiman Nuriddin
and Phyllis Alesia Perry of Men Stopping Violence discuss
in detail the intersection of racism and male violence
against women.
They
write:
"MSV asserts that violence against women is not
an individual pathology, but a systemic control tactic
that cannot be uncoupled from other oppressive systems
of control, such as racial discrimination or heterosexism.
The work of MSV is based on the premise that these systems
are integrated and, therefore, should be addressed as
parts of a whole."
Read
the book chapter here.
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Mentor
Training
Initiative Continues
Men Stopping Violence's
Mentor Training Program (MTP) continues to grow. In 2008, MSV recruited
and trained two groups of mentors: college men from Clayton State
and Georgia State universities who will work with teenage boys in
Clayton County; and mentors living in Cherokee County, Georgia, who
will work with boys living in a domestic violence shelter there.
Communities are calling on men to step up and serve as positive role
models for boys. However, if these men have not done the hard work
of examining the ways in which they adhere to negative social norms,
the cycle of violence will not be broken. The MTP trains men to more
effectively mentor boys by examining and challenging crippling definitions
of manhood.
The college men were trained in November at Southern Crescent Sexual
Assault Center in Clayton County. The training consisted of videos,
exercises and conversations geared towards educating the young men
about the nature of violence against women and sexual assault and
preparing them for the challenges of being mentors.
Men Stopping Violence also conducted a training in conjunction with
the Cherokee Family Violence Center with mentors who will begin working
in 2009 with eight to 10 boys who are currently living in domestic
abuse shelters.
Seven mentors are expected to be part of the Cherokee County initiative.
Men Stopping Violence will continue to serve a supporting role by
following up with mentors and training additional men who join the
program. Co-founder
of Zambian
Center
Spends Month Training at MSV
Stephen Bwala Mbati, one of the founders
of the Zambia Men's Resource Centre (ZAMREC) in Lusaka, Zambia,
spent four weeks in summer 2008 working with Men Stopping Violence
trainers and facilitators.
ZAMREC was established by Mbati and co-founder
Stanislaus Phiri to work with men to address violence against women.
Previously, Mbati worked for the YWCA, overseeing the main drop-in
center, where women came to seek assistance and shelter.
"Battered women would come, sometimes
with their children," he said. "Any problem they brought
in had a complement of abuse. "
Mbati
said that in 2004 he and Phiri began working on a men's network
to address male batterers. The result was the establishment of ZAMREC
in 2007, which is independent of the YWCA but continues to collaborate
with that organization.
"We've
been building structures," said Mbati. That building phase,
he said, includes looking for funding, and both conducting and participating
in training, locally and internationally.
While
at Men Stopping Violence, Mbati attended Men's Education Program
classes, participated in the Summer Seminar Series, and met with
men who were doing the work. He said that the experience helped
reinforce his plans for ZAMREC and that he learned valuable lessons
about organizing programs and partnerships.
"The
model MSV is using is the exact thing we want to do with some modifications,"
said Mbati.
First-Ever
Benefit Concert Features
Scholar, Activist Bernice Johnson Reagon
Men
Stopping Violence's "Listening to Women's Voices" benefit
on May 17 was both a concert and a conversation, as Bernice
Johnson Reagon, Doria Roberts, Kitty Snyder and Theresa
Davis gathered the more than 200 attendees into a circle
of song and poetry.
This
very special event at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of
Atlanta also included a pre-concert reception and brief presentations
about the work of Men Stopping Violence. Jenn Hobby of radio station
Q100 hosted the evening.
Dr.
Reagon, a singer, scholar, and activist, performed in the "Songtalk"
tradition, integrating storytelling with song. Perhaps no other
artist at work today better illustrates the transformative power
and instruction of traditional African-American music and cultural
history.
Before
Dr. Reagon's performance, acclaimed singer-songwriter Snyder kicked
off the evening, setting a reflective mood. Singer-songwriter Roberts
and spoken-word artist Davis, followed with sets that used words
and music that spoke directly to injustice and violence against
women.
Read
an interview with Bernice Johnson Reagon.
TIMM
Conference Draws Attendees From 8 States
Twenty-eight
people dedicated to the work of ending male violence against women
attended Men Stopping Violence's Training Institute for Mobilizing
Men (TIMM) conference February 27 through March 1, 2008, in Atlanta.
Men
Stopping Violence, in consultation with the New York-based organization
A Call to Men, has created TIMM, which helps state coalitions against
intimate partner violence organize and educate men who want to work
to end violence against women.
The
recent conference was the first of two such trainings for the eight
participating state coalitions. In addition to the training conferences,
TIMM provides in-depth assistance and support to the coalitions
as these groups create programs and protocols for working with men.
TIMM works with both the leadership of the coalitions and the men
with whom they are working or planning to work with.
This
project supports the men who become organizers and the coalitions
who lead them through conference calls, a listserv, the sharing
of best practices and organizing materials, and face-to-face meetings.
To be included in the project, participating coalitions had to meet
a specific set of criteria that signalled their readiness to do
the work of organizing men around the issue of violence against
women.
TIMM,
funded by the U.S. Department of Justice's Office on Violence Against
Women (OVW), began in the Fall of 2007 and ends in the summer of
2009. At the end of the project, each of the participating coalitions
will have a men's initiative that is sustainable, effective in engaging
men, accountable to battered women's advocates, and a model for
other states interested in starting the work of engaging men.
The
eight participating state coalitions are: Idaho, Michigan, North
Carolina, Ohio, Texas, Virginia, West Virgina and Wisconsin.
Studies
Evaluate
MSV Initiatives
Articles
have been published on two evaluations of Men Stopping Violence
initiatives.
An
article appeared in the October 2006 issue of the journal Youth
Violence and Juvenile Justice reporting findings from a study
that evaluated the Violence Prevention Mentoring Project, a program
conducted by Men Stopping Violence from 1995 to 2000. The article
-- "Preliminary Findings for an Outcome Evaluation of an Intimate
Partner Prevention Program for Adjudicated, African American Adolescent
Males" -- was authored by Laura F. Salazar, who conducted the
study, and Sarah L. Cook. (Access
the article.)
More
recently, an article reporting findings from an evaluation of an
MSV-implemented coordinated community response in two Georgia counties
appeared in the October 2007 issue of Journal of Family Violence.
This article -- "Examinnig the Behavior of a System: An
Outcome Evaluation of a Coordinated Community Response to Domestic
Violence" -- was authored by Salazar, James G. Emshoff,
Charlene K. Baker, and Terrence Red Crowley, former
Director of Men's Education for Men Stopping Violence.
(Read an abstract of the article.)
The
Violence Prevention Mentoring Project (VPMP) had two goals. First,
it aimed to offer an intervention program to juvenile males in the
DeKalb County, Georgia, criminal-legal system who were identified
as having a problem with male violence against women and girls.
Second, it worked to expose judges, probation officers and others
involved in the criminal-legal system to MSV's analysis of the problem
of male violence against women in the hope of changing their attitudes
and influencing systems change.
Juveniles
in the program attended five sessions: a two-hour initial meeting;
a visit to the regular Court Class taught by MSV for men who were
arrested for battering in DeKalb County; two sessions of the 24-week
batterers' intervention classes conducted by MSV; and a review class.
The
evaluation of the VPMP, conducted by Salazar as part of her doctoral
studies, spanned a period from June 1999 to May 2000. It concluded
that Men Stopping Violence was effective in educating juvenile males
about male violence against women and somewhat successful in changing
their attitudes about women in general. Also, the VPMP was successful
in gaining access to a particular segment of the criminal-legal
system, and garnering support from the personnel for the program,
although it remained unclear whether there was widespread attitude
change among personnel.
The
study of the coordinated community response (CCR) evaluated whether
a CCR implemented by MSV in two Georgia counties would be effective
at increasing criminal-legal system sanctions for male domestic
violence offenders. The evaluation revealed that there was a significant
increase in arrests of male offenders in both counties. However,
law enforcement agencies also arrested more women following the
intervention.
CRP
Marks 20 Years of Support, Advocacy
This year marks the 20th anniversary of MSV's innovative
Community Restoration Program (CRP).
CRP is a community education and advocacy team committed to the
work of ending violence against women. The group's original intent
was to offer men who ongoing connection and support and an opportunity
to offer service to Men Stopping Violence. CRP continues that mission
but since its founding has taken on a greater advocacy role in the
community.
“'(CRP) allows me to reinforce my commitment to treat all
folks, including my partner and all women, with fairness and dignity
and trust,” said Bill Kirksey, co-leader of CRP. “Second,
it sets an example for the men in my life. And third, it allows
me to work toward creating a safe and more just world.”
Read
more.
Community-Based
Work Vital for Strategies to End
Violence Against Women
In
an article published recently in the national publication "Domestic
Violence Report" Men Stopping Violence Director of Programs Dick
Bathrick discussed the reasons for MSV's emphasis on community accountability
as a strategy for ending male violence against women.
"Strategies
for ending violence against women are unlimited when we allow ourselves
to think beyond batterers' intervention programs. We are part of
a growing network of men ... relentlessly moving those boundaries,"
Bathrick wrote.
Read
more.
The
Givin’ is Easy!
Men
Stopping Violence belongs to Georgia Shares, a federation that enables
employees of participating businesses to learn about and contribute
to a wide array of arts and social justice organizations.
You may wish to give through payroll deduction. Participating workplaces
include:
Agnes
Scott College
Atlanta
Public Schools
City of Atlanta
City of East Point
Combined Federal Campaign
Fulton County
MARTA
State of Georgia/University System
Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore
Emory University
Blue Cross/ Blue Shield of Georgia
Grady Health Systems
Paideia School
Georgia
Shares is a wonderful employee benefit and catalyst for social change.
For more information or for a brochure listing our allied Georgia
Shares member agencies, please contact Shelley Serdahely 404) 270-9894,
ext. 27.
Visit
the Georgia Shares Web site.
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