A New Direction Joins Forces with WINGS Program, Inc
Exciting New From AND....
Last night, Jessica McCarihan, AND Executive Director, Nancy Lang, AND Board President, and Rebecca Darr, CEO and President of WINGS Program, Inc, announced that A New Direction will join forces with WINGS Program, Inc. Alderman Matt O'Shea, a member of the WINGS Metro Leadership Council, also attended the event. Read more about this partnership here.
Last night, Jessica McCarihan, AND Executive Director, Nancy Lang, AND Board President, and Rebecca Darr, CEO and President of WINGS Program, Inc, announced that A New Direction will join forces with WINGS Program, Inc. Alderman Matt O'Shea, a member of the WINGS Metro Leadership Council, also attended the event. Read more about this partnership here.
Inaugural Golf Outing - Chipping In To End Domestic Violence
View and download photos from our Inaugural Golf Outing here!
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2020 Individual Courage Award Winner
AND is excited to announce that the 2020 ANDi Individual Courage Award recipient is Amber Cichowicz. Amber was selected by the AND Board for her strength, courage, and resiliency.
Amber is a survivor of domestic violence who found the courage to leave her abusive partner and ask for help. Amber was referred to A New Direction after disclosing to her daughter’s teacher a violent incident [she] witnessed. “For me and women like me, this [was] a matter of life and death. Sometimes I think about what would have happened if I hadn’t found A New Direction. Would I still be with him, living every day in an abusive relationship, or would my ending have been even worse?”
“It has been 570 days since we have been free and I am so grateful for each day. Thank you for your gifts and generous donations to A New Direction that makes this continued support possible for women and children like me. It truly takes a village."
Amber, a mother of three and ‘second mother’ of two children, plans to become an advocate for other domestic violence survivors. She also volunteers for a giving group that helps those less fortunate have a special holiday.
Read Amber’s full story here – www.anewdirectionbmp.org/ambersstory
Amber is a survivor of domestic violence who found the courage to leave her abusive partner and ask for help. Amber was referred to A New Direction after disclosing to her daughter’s teacher a violent incident [she] witnessed. “For me and women like me, this [was] a matter of life and death. Sometimes I think about what would have happened if I hadn’t found A New Direction. Would I still be with him, living every day in an abusive relationship, or would my ending have been even worse?”
“It has been 570 days since we have been free and I am so grateful for each day. Thank you for your gifts and generous donations to A New Direction that makes this continued support possible for women and children like me. It truly takes a village."
Amber, a mother of three and ‘second mother’ of two children, plans to become an advocate for other domestic violence survivors. She also volunteers for a giving group that helps those less fortunate have a special holiday.
Read Amber’s full story here – www.anewdirectionbmp.org/ambersstory
2020 Community Partnership Award Winner
AND is excited to announce that the 2020 Community Partnership ANDi award recipient is Tim Baffoe. Tim was selected by the AND Board for his outstanding, continuous support of AND, along with his dedication to the education of teenage boys about teen dating violence and domestic violence.
Tim is an English Teacher and the English Department Chairperson at St. Rita High School. He is The Natir Moderator and the Social Justice Club Moderator. Tim has been a faculty member at St. Rita High School for the last fourteen years. This year he teaches two Honors English classes, AP Language and Composition, Politics of Sport, and Media Literacy.
Since 2011, Tim has required freshmen to read and discuss a novel called Breathing Underwater. This story shines light on the cycle of domestic violence, including threats, intimidation, isolation, power and control, and other key contributing factors.
St. Rita's teachers constantly reevaluate and modify their curriculum to best incorporate lessons in empathy-building amongst the young men, and the study of this novel is just one of the multiple examples of this.
"Exposing young men in the classroom to issues that impact women is important because, unfortunately, there are few if any other consistent outlets in their lives that do so, and adolescence seems to be where hypermasculinity and toxic attitudes begin to calcify. At the same time, teens are also more willing to consider new and differing perspectives on important societal issues — it's adults who tend to have more stubborn worldviews. Many young men have never been asked to examine the complexities of this issue beyond the seemingly-simple platitude of ‘violence against a partner or family member is bad’ or not being pressed to think about what ‘respect women’ actually means.
Every year my freshmen are enrapt in the reading and discussion of Breathing Underwater, and it's a novel that causes many students to actually want to talk about what they've read, sometimes before the bell even rings to start class. It's such a fascinating experience each year to watch the majority of the class initially sympathize with and even defend the novel's flawed protagonist because he's a high school boy with high school boy problems just like them (compounded by the often-automatic male loyalty 'bros before hoes' culture), only to watch the gradual change in young men's attitudes toward the narrator as it becomes clearer that he's been manipulating the readers just like he has manipulated (and abused) his girlfriend. Studying this novel and the issues of domestic and teen dating violence provides a metacognitive exercise in examining our own conditioned reflexes and biases (especially as young men) toward abusive figures--be they fictional, celebrity, or otherwise--and having honest conversations about that."
www.stritahs.com
Tim is an English Teacher and the English Department Chairperson at St. Rita High School. He is The Natir Moderator and the Social Justice Club Moderator. Tim has been a faculty member at St. Rita High School for the last fourteen years. This year he teaches two Honors English classes, AP Language and Composition, Politics of Sport, and Media Literacy.
Since 2011, Tim has required freshmen to read and discuss a novel called Breathing Underwater. This story shines light on the cycle of domestic violence, including threats, intimidation, isolation, power and control, and other key contributing factors.
St. Rita's teachers constantly reevaluate and modify their curriculum to best incorporate lessons in empathy-building amongst the young men, and the study of this novel is just one of the multiple examples of this.
"Exposing young men in the classroom to issues that impact women is important because, unfortunately, there are few if any other consistent outlets in their lives that do so, and adolescence seems to be where hypermasculinity and toxic attitudes begin to calcify. At the same time, teens are also more willing to consider new and differing perspectives on important societal issues — it's adults who tend to have more stubborn worldviews. Many young men have never been asked to examine the complexities of this issue beyond the seemingly-simple platitude of ‘violence against a partner or family member is bad’ or not being pressed to think about what ‘respect women’ actually means.
Every year my freshmen are enrapt in the reading and discussion of Breathing Underwater, and it's a novel that causes many students to actually want to talk about what they've read, sometimes before the bell even rings to start class. It's such a fascinating experience each year to watch the majority of the class initially sympathize with and even defend the novel's flawed protagonist because he's a high school boy with high school boy problems just like them (compounded by the often-automatic male loyalty 'bros before hoes' culture), only to watch the gradual change in young men's attitudes toward the narrator as it becomes clearer that he's been manipulating the readers just like he has manipulated (and abused) his girlfriend. Studying this novel and the issues of domestic and teen dating violence provides a metacognitive exercise in examining our own conditioned reflexes and biases (especially as young men) toward abusive figures--be they fictional, celebrity, or otherwise--and having honest conversations about that."
www.stritahs.com
