One Moar Time

There’s been a recent influx of people changing their FB profile picture based on this statement:

“change your facebook profile picture to a cartoon character from your childhood and invite your friends to do the same. there should be no human faces on facebook, but an invasion of memories until Dec.6 for the fight against child violence! ♥”

For starters, I couldn’t find anywhere if this was started by the United Nations, United Way or some other organization. What I did find is that domestic & family violence month was over in October.

Is this a massive internet joke then? A Prank?

This is too serious of a matter for me to be my cynical self, so instead I’m choosing to do what I can do to help; help that doesn’t involve me changing my picture to Yako Wako and Dot from the Animaniacs.

Uh oh...kevs being serious

In broader terms, child violence falls under the umbrella category of family violence, which also includes domestic violence (spousal abuse).

Ways that we should be helping this cause:

COMMUNICATE
Keep yourself informed with the public policy of your area/state.
If one really wanted to help, they would educate themselves and others to influence policy and decision makers about issues pertaining to domestic and family violence.

There was so much hype over prop 19, the cannabis proposition. If we as an educated youth can bring that much awareness to something like that, I’m sure we can do the same for any upcoming policies on family violence.

For example: Check out the I-VAWA (International Violence Against Women Act) (HR 4594/S 2982). Look it up and urge your Senator to support it.

I'm counting on you to let Barbara Boxer know!!!

EDUCATE (yourself and others)

If you suspect or know anyone who might be a victim of family violence, take action, and encourage them to call these help lines:

Free hotline for Los Angeles County residents: 1-800-978-3600

National Domestic Abuse Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or 1-800-787-3224

BUT if they are in immediate danger, tell them not to hesitate and to CALL 911!

If you’re shy, afraid, or just feel awkward about saying anything, you can at least refer them to some more information, such as:

It shouldn’t hurt to go home: A Domestic Violence Victim’s handbook.

DONATE

Did you know In 2009, the state of California cut its 20.4 million dollar support for domestic violence shelters, forcing many of them to shut down?

If you would like to help some of the remaining shelters in the Los Angeles area, call them up and see what you can do to help. I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to accept donations of clothes and food (especially this holiday season).

There’s also the option of donating a monetary contribution to The Moby SOS fund (the music artist) who works in collaboration with California Partnership to End Domestic Violence (CPEDV) to support many of these shelters.

LFS-ERVICE! A special message to Alpha Phi Omega

Don’t just do it for the service hours APO brethren! Facebook has obviously been the medium to bring awareness to this matter, but let’s do the A Phi O thing and take it a step further and Serve.

California Partnership to End Domestic Violence volunteer opportunities

http://www.cpedv.org/Volunteer

Don’t know what they’ll assign, but I’m sure signing up entitles us to be informed about any upcoming events.

And again, the locations of shelters in the LA area that help women and children who have been victims of violence:

Resource 1

Resource 2

Leadership, Friendship, Service!

All in all, I'm not telling you guys to be heroes. I'm just letting you guys know the purpose of this viral thing on facebook is to bring awareness to people. Whomever started this thing has done their part, but lets not let their work go to waste. It's now our part to help out now that we're aware, even if it means simply giving a phone number to someone in need.