Legal Momentum News Brief - Week of October 15, 2018

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October 15, 2018

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month (DVAM)

DVAM celebrates survivors of domestic violence, commemorates those who have died because of it, and brings together advocacy networks to end it. Legal Momentum is taking action this month by participating in various advocacy campaigns and hosting social media chats to raise awareness of DV-related issues and underscore steps we can take to spark change. Join us on 10/16 at 3pm as we co-host a Twitter chat with the National Network to End Domestic Violence, and again on 10/17 at 2pm as we take part in YWCA’s Week Without Violence. 

Stay up to date with other World Without Violence events on LM’s social media (FacebookTwitter) throughout the week to learn how you can take action to end domestic violence. To close out DVAM, LM will soon launch its Giving Tuesday campaign. Donations will help us advocate for survivors of domestic violence and more.

Legal Momentum Speaks Out for #MeToo and DVAM

One year after #MeToo breaking into the mainstream, Legal Momentum President Carol Moody offers reflections on legislative progress that has yet to be made in spite of the movement’s popularity. Check out her feature in an article by USA Today on what lawmakers have – and haven’t – done to confront sexual harassment and assault. Also, last week LM Deputy Legal Director Jennifer Becker participated in a DVAM event at NYU’s School of Law focused on the relationship between modern technology and domestic violence. 

Jennifer was part of a panel discussion with a Cornell/NYU Tandon Professor and a social worker from the community-based organization Day One. Jennifer talked with a diverse group of law students about litigation strategies and promising policy changes that would help survivors of this new type of domestic violence seek justice. Read more about how technology use by perpetrators of domestic abuse and violence can go unchecked by criminal law in this New York Times piece from September, in which Jennifer is quoted.

LM’s Rights Now! Program Starts Exciting Third Year

Legal Momentum is excited to announce the third year of our Rights Now! program, which empowers young women of color to identify and respond to sexual abuse, violence, and sex-based discrimination. With a generous grant from the New York City Council’s Young Women’s Initiative, Rights Now! year three is up and running. We are currently searching for Peer Educators, who take part in a nine-week training program that gives young women the tools to teach Rights Now! Workshops to their peers across New York City. If you know of a young woman who would make a great Peer Educator, encourage her to apply 

LM has hired a new Policy Fellow, Chioma Egekeze, to spearhead the program and has invited a Rights Now! Peer Educator from last year’s program, Shanifa Bennett, to be LM’s Junior Policy Fellow and co-lead the program. Chioma comes to LM from Rutgers University and is currently a student in New York University’s Masters of Public Health programming. Shanifa is an activist with a focus on empowering young women who have been victims of human trafficking; as a Rights Now! Peer Educator she wrote a LM blog for Black History Month 2018and as part of her other advocacy work she was interviewed by the New York Post in April 2018.

2019 Women of Achievement Awards Dinner Kick-Off Event

Join Legal Momentum’s Board of Directors and the Women of Achievement Awards Dinner Committee on October 29, 2018 in Redwood City, CA as we host our annual kick-off event for the 2019 Women of Achievement Awards Dinner. This kick-off event will feature motivational speaker, survivor, and author Digene Farrar sharing her insights and discussing her book NOT MY SECRET TO KEEP: A Memoir of Healing from Childhood Sexual Abuse. To RSVP for this limited-space event by 10/19 or learn more, email Crystal Williams, LM’s Deputy Development Director, at cwilliams@legalmomentum.org.

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