Denim Day: A Conversation about Advocacy and Peace Over Violence with Patti Giggans

Transcript auto-generated from the episode audio; formatting has been cleaned up, but wording is verbatim.

I'm Cynthia Marks, and I head up the Holistic Psychoanalysis Foundation, established by my late husband, Doctor Bernard Bail. Welcome to And Now Love. Peace Over Violence was founded in 1971. It is a Los Angeles based nonprofit dedicated to intervention, prevention, education and advocacy for survivors of abuse and violence, and offers a variety of educational programs and counseling services. Our guest today, Patti Giggans has been the executive director since 1985. Patti has a master's degree in nonprofit administration from the University of San Francisco.

Patti's devotion to helping those who have fallen victim to abuse and violence of all sorts is evident in all that she does. Patti said she chose to work in violence prevention because there can be no equality or freedom when there is violence or the threat of violence. Peace over violence wholly encompasses this endeavor. Hello, Patti. Hi, Cynthia. Thank you for being here. It's my. Pleasure. It's a treasure for us. So there's so much to talk about. But I really would like to start with this event that you have Denim Day. Because that kind of can help us dig into this story.

And it's just around the corner. Yes. Denim day is a program that this over violence started in 1999. That even surprises. You. Yes. Right. Since we've been doing it, it's, you know, it started locally in LA. We're the flagship, but they're denim days all over the country. And now spreading all over the world. And it's the longest running sexual violence prevention education campaign ever. And our goal is to keep it going until we really make a dent in the amount of sexual harassment, trafficking, child sexual abuse, rape, domestic violence, all those abuses.

And it's, an opportunity to change people's minds and to let them know that they can be a support person for survivors, because, in my view, that's one of the most important things that we need to teach right. Now is how to be supportive. Yes. Yeah. So what was the impetus for this denim day? It was inspired by an Italian Supreme Court case where this judge, in Rome, overturned a lower court's conviction on a rape. They went through the process of appeals, and the the Supreme Court judge said the young woman, her jeans were so tight that there's no way that this gentleman could get her jeans off without her assistance.

Therefore, her tight jeans, that was consent. That was not rape. And he let the guy out of jail. The female parliamentarians in Rome saw that. And they did a protest wearing jeans. They called it the jeans alibi. You know, let's end the jeans alibi. They did a protest on the steps of the Supreme Court. And in Sacramento, California, our legislators, in solidarity, did a protest wearing jeans. And it was like a 24 hour CNN news cycle that I watched. And it was like, what is happening here? And then I just came to me that we all should be wearing denim, wearing jeans on purpose to refute all the myths and lies that are told about what happens to women and girls and boys and some men when it comes out.

With sexual violence. That's outrageous. So that's how that's how we started in a little park not too far from here in downtown L.A.. So that was your idea? Yeah, it. Was my idea. And of course, by my team and our agency, we've just run with it for, you know, 26 years now. And it continues to grow and it continues to grow in importance. So what happens on Denim Day. And Denim Day? We encourage being the flagship L.A. headquarters of the original Denim Day. We encourage everyone to wear jeans or some kind of denim, a jacket or get some, you know, we're buttons and to really make a stand.

And we picked a Wednesday originally because we originally we got a lot of companies to lower their dress code so that their employees could wear jeans that day. Now, of course, over the years, jeans are de rigueur everywhere. People wear jeans, so it's not so much a, you know, that's not a big deal. But the idea is to make a social statement with your fashion statement in solidarity to be against these crimes and these traumas, and to educate ourselves and everybody else about what, what rape and sexual violence is really about and how it is such a huge impact on so many, so many social issues that we have as a as communities.

Yeah. So there's a big trickle down. Yeah. Big. So there is an event. Then there is the opportunity for each and every one of us to support just by what we choose to wear that day. Participating as by wearing denim. We have a website denim day. Dot org. We have, toolkits that people can, utilize to have denim days at their universities, their workplaces, their businesses, out in the community. And here in LA on Wednesday, April 29th at 9 a.m., where we've been traditionally having our, solidarity rally and press conference with speakers, survivors speak.

We have electeds kind of like also a community fair, resource fair. And, that's going to be happening, downtown LA on the South Lawn of Los Angeles City Hall on, April 29th. And more. And more. Individuals show up to show. Up. Come out. Where are your wear your best denim or your denim with holes in them? You know, your raggedy denim show up, and be part of the symbolism to take a stand against these forms of violence. Yeah. That's fabulous. So these events that are happening around the country or around the world? Yes, around the country and around the world.

And you've helped them. You've helped these events become established, but you aren't monitoring or babysitting. You've just said, hey, we decided, we. Decided early on that the best way we thought the best way to communicate information was to create an open source. So we want to funnel people information and ideas about how different kinds of ways they can participate in Denim Day. And so it has a life of its own. Now we continue to hopefully inspire and send out our materials and of course flagship LA. We do. We always do our events throughout the month of April because April in the United States is Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

You know, you know how we have weeks and days and months? Well, April is that month, for sexual violence prevention and education. I appreciate that, but it should be 12 months out of the year. Well, of course, you know, so we we try to inspire, colleges and universities and high schools, businesses to take a moment and participate, pay attention. This has been going on for a long time now. Over the course of that time, do you see sort of an ebb and flow in the interest? Yeah, that is a good question. I mean, that's a question that I ask all the time.

You know, being so involved with my work and with conversations with our staff at peace over violence in our and our sister, brother agencies who do this work, you know, because, I mean, we have right now where we're at a moment with the Epstein files and with the revelations about Chavez and Dolores Huerta. So there's a moment and again, a moment. But there have been other moments. There's me too. Me too. There's a list of very well-known people, whether it's Hollywood or business, who, it turns out, were predators of some kind. And there's a big hullabaloo.

People talk about it, it's in the news. And then what happens kind of subsides. So my question right now, especially with Epstein and Chavez, is, is this another one of those we're we're exercised, we're adrenalized. Some people are shocked. Some people aren't shocked. Some people still want to blame the victims, but it's like, what are we what do we going to do about it? Right now, all of our programs are being are being cut back. Makes it hard to do any because. Of the economy and and just different circumstance of budgeting and, and the climate that we were in, in the country.

So my question is, okay, here's another revelation. Now what? So since you've been doing this for a while, what what do you think the answer is to that? Now what my now what is that? We will not give up. We will not give up hope. We will not give up our advocacy or our activism. We will continue to educate and try to inspire and support right and do all of our services that are directly to the survivors of the families, you know, and the community. So that's my response. But then I have a cynical side which is, how can we keep doing this if we keep getting cut back and not just us, just our entire because there is a movement.

We created a movement 50 years ago. You know, the violence against women's movement, and then it connected with all the other movements. Right. So there have been some good things that have been happening and has been a consciousness that's been raised, but we keep kind of hitting the wall of how do we go further? Because people who have been hurt and harmed, especially in these intimate ways through violence, often by people they know and trust it, you know, that's the key. If we are not, as a society, willing to do all the things that we can to help them heal, and when it's possible to seek justice and to hold abusers accountable, if we don't get to that place, what does that say about us, about priorities and about values and about integrity?

It seems that there must be a large group of people who have the capability of supporting a survivor, but if they think beyond that relationship with the survivor, what if I support this person? What if I bring this to the forefront? This person was raped by their uncle. You know what kind of turmoil I'm am I going to create? And that whole dynamic outside of that horrible event or things like that, places that create a stopping point for somebody who might support. They're just afraid of the ramifications beyond the event. In much the same way perhaps a survivor might be.

Yeah. I mean, I think when I think about, you know, over the years doing this work and seeing the impediments, but most of I think the impediments come from the fact that when survivors tried to tell their truth, their truth is not received. There's a lot of prejudice and criticism. There's disbelief. Yes. Or they're lying. That doesn't seem plausible. So the support isn't necessarily there. Not that it is absent all the time. It's not because and that's why you have organizations like ours, a whole field of advocates who are educating and or counseling and are staffing the 24 hour hotlines.

Right. And so there are places where it's safe to tell you truth and be received and hopefully get on a healing path. But I think one of the most important things that we do at peace over violence is that we don't tell people what to do, how fast they have to do it. There is no obligation to heal, it's somebody else's timetable. So the idea of us being able to receive we train volunteers to staff are 24 hour, seven day a week hotline. And I know, you know, you're the name of your your program has love in it. And when I think about the love that our staff and the love that our volunteers put into this effort, you know it's like again that's where I have hope.

You cannot be cynical about the people who develop this skill set and open their hearts to help others when it comes to this kind of deep trauma. Yeah, I mean, that takes a lot of empathy and takes a lot of depth from the person helping, which, I mean, that's pretty much love. That's a tough thing to want to put yourself into. So you really have to dig deep. I think, and I think it's what we all need to do on so many levels is really dig. Well, that's why we've developed this fabulous, we call it counselor advocate training. We take volunteers who are ready and willing to devote the time like it's an 85 hour training.

They learn the didactic stuff, they do the reading. We have speakers who come in, you know, they learn all about the systems, the law enforcement, the judiciary, you know, the therapeutic systems. They learn about options that you can recommend for people to try, you know, and then ultimately after they learn everything technical, develop their skill set, basically say, just listen, listen, open your heart, don't judge and don't tell people what they should do with their lives. Let them decide. Give them options. Provide information. Lip trust that when the time is right, they will take different steps to on their path, on their journey.

That's a big deal. So many of us are. Our go to is I got to fix this. Yeah. It's funny. I'll tell a funny story. Love lawyers have lawyers on my board. I was have we have, a legal program at the agency, but the toughest the folks who couldn't pass the counsel advocate training, the most lawyer. So because they want to they want to get to the heart of the problem, they want to solve the problem, and they want to tell you what to do, what you want your lawyer to guide you. Yes. On other things, but not about this. That is funny. So it takes it takes a certain kind of person who's willing to dig deep, had the capacity for self-reflection and is willing to be the receptacle.

In a way. I think there are a lot of us out there. Yes. Who would be prepared to do that? Absolutely. It's kind of a good prescription for life, actually. Those kind of skills. For sure. I mean, to always think I can dig deep, right? And come from a place of listening, of empathy. I mean, just think how our world would be if we were really kind of on that path. You weren't always with peace over violence, but it's clear that it's a passion for you. What about your life or you led you to this? Good question. Because I've been, you know, I've been, as you mentioned, I've been the with the agency for, oh, you know, over 40, over 40 years.

That is really a test. But the way that I started was I, as a feminist, I, I started practicing martial arts, and I was often the only woman in the class, the only woman at the dojo. This is years ago. I had one of my I trained in, in, taekwondo, Korean martial art that I trained in Japanese, Shotokan, and my Japanese sensei. Sensei, you know, was a word for teacher said to me one day he said, how come you're the only woman here? What? The women come and they leave. I said, well, it's not easy to be in an all male environment and do this kind of practice.

So they leave. He said, well, how come you stayed? I said, because I have a hard head and also I see the benefit. I stuck around long enough to see the benefit of this practice for me. So then he suggested that I start a class on Saturday morning in the dojo, just for women to see if. So, he inspired me to the fact that he had confidence that I could teach was like I said, okay, let's try this. And it was one of the greatest things I started to do in my life because I took to it and I enjoyed it so much. And after class we'd go out to a cafe. The students and they talk about their lives.

And so as I learned a little bit more about their lives, I could see where their blockages were when they were doing movements, because a lot of the movements in karate and martial, they very prescribed, you know, you learn forms and cutters and things, right? And I could see where they could move a certain way. And I put a little bit together about their stories, what they were going through in their lives. So I, so I felt, well, if you look at women's bodies, men's bodies, kids bodies, you can tell stuff about them. And so I became really interested in teaching martial arts, specifically karate to women.

So when I came back, that was in Paris. When it came back to United States, I opened up the karate Women's School of Movement and Martial Arts. And was that in Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, in Mar Vista, actually on Goddess Boulevard and right at that time, in the late 70s, there was like a collective unconscious. And there was a dojo that opened in San Francisco and in Brooklyn and Chicago, and to all women teachers, there were, you know, there's about ten of us. Yeah, we didn't know each other. But then we started to find each other, and we started an organization called women in the Martial Arts.

So this is like a very creative time, you know, certainly in my life and in and I think in when you think of women progressing and going into untraditional jobs. That would be one. That would. Be back then as a sensei, what you're describing about the body movement relative to the human experience, and you came to that without anyone telling you, look, for this, you just began to sort of decipher that. Is that something that a sensei also works on? Yeah. I mean, I think, like, I, I didn't have that experience with my own sensei. There was wasn't.

But I think it's there because I think when you practice something and you're trying to aim for excellence or you're trying to, you're aiming to accomplish things with your body, even if sports name any sport, when you do it enough and you're trying to develop that skill set your body and your mind interface and your heart, you know? So I think it happens. It wasn't really pointed out to me. I started discovering it on my own, in my own little world there, you know. But I think the bigger answer is, I think, yes, I think it happens. And I think now it's noticed and I think psychology notices.

It, you know. Yeah, that we're not separate from our bodies. And I think for a lot of us, it's still a hard concept to grasp. You know, this thing's happening. And then my my head and my heart are not related. You know, it's it's on the other hand, it's hard not to believe that they're not related. And I think it's really cool that a lot of attention is being paid, paid to that. So I think yeah, I think that has been we made progress in that area. So I yeah, I think athletes, you know, eventually develop that sense that, you know, body mind sense, and certainly psychology does.

And even when we counsel at our agency, when we do peer counseling, you know, what do we do? We tell people to make sure that they're taking care of their bodies. Well, what's the most important you can tell any person these days they want to be healthy is to move. Make sure you're moving in some way. Don't sit and look at your phone all day, right? Which we. All do. You want to be healthy. So from there, just close that loop of my my story folks from the agency that had a different name back then, we were called the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women.

The core. They had a self-defense program, and they came and found me and asked if I would help their program grow and if I would help train, give a deeper training to their instructors. And so I started to get involved that way as a kind of an advisor. And then I got hired on his staff, and then I became the executive director. So I did a shift and left the dojo and started to really focus on whatever I learned in the dojo. And as a martial artist, how do I bring that into this other sphere? And when you brought it into this other sphere, obviously your self-protection is huge, but were you at that point able to put into words this combination of heart and head and body as part of that instruction?

Yes, because that's what we did in terms our empowerment, self-defense and safety program, which we then which grew. They had a small program growing. And then when I came on board, it's, you know, we just grew it. And I love the idea, the idea of the collective unconscious. Because guess what? There were women teaching self. Not only were there women teaching martial arts, there were then women martial arts out of the dojo and teaching it in the community as women's self-defense, I know. And at Karate Women we also started kids karate. Before the movie, what we called the karate Kids.

And it was before the movie of Karate Kids. A lot of people don't remember that movie, but I do. We got we going that phrase early. So yeah. So this idea of bringing the synthesis of a whole person, you know, how do we how do we. And isn't that one of the, our challenges in life is as individuals is like, how do we bring it all together? Yes. You know, our hearts, our minds, our bodies, you know, developing our compassion and our empathy and our consciousness to be present for ourselves and for others. Yes, around here we feel like that is a huge task.

I don't mean huge in terms of a lot of effort. I mean just huge in terms of preserving the world in that if we don't figure out really what's going on inside of us and around us in our little orbit, if we don't get settled, if we don't know who we really are, we can't make a difference in the world. And if we look outside and we see the chaos and what's going on, he can look at what's going on inside. Is it the same thing? And if you can get to the bottom of what's going on in you, you know, why am I carrying this trauma? What has been done to me?

What am I doing to myself? What is a human? Where is the love? What is empathy? What is my truth? If you can get to the bottom of all of that, then you can just naturally serve your community and humanity. This morning before I came here, I was at a, days of dialog event that's put on by the Institute for nonviolence in L.A. and this is, the days of dialog is the it's a program where you have facilitated conversations that you might not be able to have if there was not a facilitator there. Meaning you get to listen to each other. People have different points of view.

And this has been going on for like 30 years, and I've been part of this group for a while. So this morning there was a day of dialog event. What the question at each table was, or would you like 8 or 10 people at a table with a facilitator? And the question was, how do you practice nonviolence? How do you practice that as a person? It was fascinating because, you know, many people talked about how well the biggest practice places the family is within our family, within our relationships. That's one of the biggest practice places. Right? And people also were forthcoming about how how the divisive politics right now where we are in, you know, 2026, in the country and the world, actually, and how challenging that is to practice nonviolence and and to like to not have thoughts, think about violent things, having violence, responses, verbal.

Yeah. Now how do you have, you know, more peaceful conversations when there's all these emotions and threats and just challenges to our values? Yeah. And every day a little more pronounced is that. Yeah. So that was what the conversation was about. And so that's why I love the word practice, the idea that we are not perfect, we're never going to get anything perfectly right. But we can practice. We can practice nonviolence. We can practice violence prevention. We can practice how to learn to listen to each other. Right? We can practice how to support each other.

We can practice how did not have our own mitigation, our craziness and our prejudices always take over and interfere so that we can't have a communication with another person. It's about it's about practice. I think if you can consider it that and not think about the idea of perfection, that gives you a lot more leeway to have a go. Exactly. Yeah. Because we're never going to be perfect. No. And if you hold that up, then, you know, how can we be successful, right. How do you even how do you get started? But how can we even find some internal peace with the turmoil of trying to be perfect or beating ourselves up when we make a mistake, you know, say we unintentionally harm someone, but if we if we keep beating ourselves up and we're not able to figure out how to move through that, then we're nowhere.

We're nowhere. Well, we're not we're not in a good place yet that way. That's right. Peace over violence. A big organization and doing. Practicing peace over. Violence. That's right. That's what we do. You do. And and I love, too, that you can be a lot of things over violence. You can be love over violence, health over violence. It's it's really kind of like. When we decided after after many years of changing the name of the organization, it was really time to find a new name. And we just, like, we couldn't come up with, well, we wouldn't change the name of the organization.

I told you what it was before the call because we couldn't come up with a better name or a different name that we could everybody could decide on the board. Would they pull their hair out? Right? What are we going to name it? So finally we settled on this over violence idea that over violence is our engine. It's our brand. And that so we could be peace over violence, but we could also be community over violence. Cynthia. Over violence. Patti. Over violence. Yeah L.A. over violence. So that the idea and that's what I love about the work that we do together a piece of the violence all of us is that we are part of an engine that is practicing how to get these ideas across and invite people to join in.

To become over violence. Yeah. So with our brand, which is a photographic brand, we take pictures of people and we ask them, what would you, your word be of violence? So they get to pick. It's really fun and it's inspirational actually. So when we decided on the name of the organization we wanted, we wanted a name that was aspirational, a name that was inspirational, and I wanted a name that people couldn't argue with. So if. You did that, you could. Argue. You could argue about peace over violence. What do you got to say? Right. And it's also something you can't really forget.

You know, I feel like it really sticks. Yeah. It does. Well, that's good to hear. And it sticks. So you're your organization. I know you have this great 24 hour hotline and so many people trained to help with those services, but you do a ton of other things. What else are you doing? We do a lot when it comes to intervention, which is, you know, intervening at the time or whenever that victim survivor is coming forward. Right. And what happened to that person? So we have counseling, we have legal services, we have opportunities for, advocacy and accompaniment.

We will go to if there's a court case to get, restraining order or if there's a court case because of an assault criminal case, we will accompany and be that advocate for that survivor. We show up and we always show up at the request of the victim. Survivor. You know what I mean? These are they're choices that they make. And then we have different healing modalities, different paths, you know, like trauma inform yoga classes. All right. We're starting to get into some sound baths. So that kind of self-care. Where do these things take place? Well, at our center.

And we go and we also go to where these folks who know how to do it, we will you will get groups together or we'll bring them in. We'll bring the facilitators in, into our center, into our groups. And some of this stuff is even done on zoom now on telehealth, you know, since Covid, that's been, it's been an opportunity to reach people in different formats. And certainly during Covid, there was an uptick in people needing your services. Yes. Right. Yeah. That was that was an important, enlightened moment for folks to understand when everybody said stay home.

We had people who was staying home and it was the most to stay home to be safe. Home was not safe. I remember there was I will end up taking a call. Occasionally calls will come to me. I'm usually not staffing the hotline anymore like I used to, but because we have all our folks who do that really well, and the woman was calling and she was in her house, her husband was in the garage. She called when he was in the garage. She said, I think he's only going to be out there for about ten more minutes. So I really wanted to call because I need some help.

When can I call back? You know, can I? When can I reach you again? Will I talk to you or will I talk to someone else? So, you know, I said, listen, you can call us 24 seven. Someone will be here to listen to you. And if we can, you know, give you some guidance. I'll never forget that call. She said she had a little window. Amazing. And she wanted to. Oh, my. Calling the right number. Can I call back? When can I call back? He's going to be back in the house in a minute. I'm afraid. And why would one choose to call you instead of 911? So some people don't want to do that.

They know there is concern. If you call the cops, what does that happen? Are they going to, you know, something harm going to happen to my husband because I've accused him of this, or they see evidence of abuse and if they're going to put him in jail, well, what's going to happen to us paying the rent if he's in jail? So people and also people don't know. So when they call a hotline, they can get a lot more information, hopefully widen their options and figure out if there are choices that make sense to them and maybe not right in that moment, but later.

Yeah. So good for her for finding a moment. Exactly. I mean, to me that was just illustrative. Yeah. Of how when I say that our staff and volunteers show up, they do their their you can call, you know, and we will go with you to the hospital. We will go to the rape exam. We will go with you to the police station, and we will go with you to the court. We're very biased because we think no one should go through the trauma of interpersonal violence alone, particularly if you can have a skillful advocate who could be by your side. We like to think that, you know, that would be our sister or a mom, and.

That could be that, too. Or in addition. Yeah. Because you want your if you want your people to be supportive, but they may not also have all the information. And guess what a lot of family members and spouses call us to find out. How do I respond? How can I help? So we're there for the whole family. I'm happy we're there for the community. What about that? Yeah, I just counseled a, recently, a mom whose daughter had disclosed a young, college student who, disclosed that she had been assaulted. And the mom was, like, going through her own shock about it and wanted to be supportive, wasn't sure how to be, didn't want to say the wrong thing, you know, and it was a very emotional time.

I was able to kind of set her at ease that she's still the mom. She's going to figure it out, you know? And your best, tools are your ears right? Now, listen, you don't have to tell somebody what to do if it is your own daughter, but educate yourself about what her choices may be so that you could at some point, and she wants to hear it. What are her options? That person or the person who called while her husband was in the garage? They find you? How? Well, we've been around for the LA Raven battering hotline number has been around for, you know, 55 years.

Does that take that person to you? The LA battery. That comes to out to our hotline, to our counselor advocates who take shifts. I see. So people take shifts for six hour shifts after they're trained and we asked for a year commitment. There are monthly in services and there are supervisors, and they always have somebody they can call. If there's a question, I just got this call. I don't know how to handle this particular part. Right. So it's a whole system that we've developed and we're not the only ones. I'm happy to say that we have a network throughout Los Angeles, throughout California, throughout the country.

So the violence against women's movement organized itself to be service providers and also hopefully influencers on culture and on policy. Do you see change? Yes. Yeah. When I take the longer view, do I see change? But do I notice? And my saddened and sometimes infuriated by the pushback in the backlash about how women and girls in particular are treated? Yeah, there's that too. So it's like we make progress and then there's a backlash, we make more progress and there's backlash, and we are in a backlash time right now. And it won't be. It's not the first time and it won't be the last.

No more to come. Do you feel like with this step backwards though in the end we make a smidgen of progress? I like to believe that right now I feel like it's very big backlash. I do too big. Know what I mean? Lifetime. Super big. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So it's like I am I am concerned, how do we come, you know, how do we survive? You know, our agencies are being defunded and the economy is not very good. And people are paying a lot for gas and for eggs and milk. So donations are down. Government cutbacks. Where does most of your funding come from?

Typically. Most recently. We had we've had a high percentage of government funding from the city of Los Angeles and the county of Los Angeles in the state of California and the federal government. So they're all different, you know, funding sources of government funds and I'm a big proponent of government supporting these kinds of social issues. Makes a lot of. Them a big support. I think what's happened is we've kind of like we started to become more and more dependent on the government. And and then you have philanthropy and foundations and you have fundraising campaigns and you have individual donors.

You do, you know, my job part of my job, the biggest part of my job is to make sure that we have the funds that we need. Right. So, you know, constantly fundraising with my teams and my board. It has to be more than just you. It's a big job. Yeah, it's probably harder now than it's ever been, in my experience. And that's what I'm hearing from my sister. Brother, executive directors. Yes. Us too. We're hearing the same thing. Yeah, we're we're in we're in a tough time right now. And we have to figure out how to handle what's coming at us. And, you know, survive so that we can thrive another day.

Because I think it is it's almost like victimization itself, your first year surviving, but your goal is to thrive. So I think we're in it. We're right now we're surviving, but we want to thrive because this is important work. These are important values. These are about people's lives. Well. So there are valleys throughout time over the course of your existence where probably you have been thriving, and then the world changes and it becomes something different. Like there is a period where we got we were able to get some pretty decent funding for violence prevention, violence prevention, education, like being on the college campuses and being in the high schools in the middle schools.

Right. And even and even teaching kids self-defense and safety to elementary school kids. Is that one of the first things to go? Yes, prevention is always the first thing to go, right. It's not an emergency. Yeah. And now intervention is going to cut. Everybody's cutting back. I mean, cities and counties all over the country are are not being able to manage their their budgets very well. Or less able. We are to put gas in our cars and food on our tables. The more aware we are of our wars, the more trouble exists in our own homes and the more violence occurs, the less funding you have.

It's a tough cookie. But I mean, I believe are in some ways our movement is thriving because we are all connecting. We know each other. We know we respect the work that all of the agencies are doing. We were kind of all in the same boat, you know, so there is a kind of thriving, but it's we have to figure out how to survive now so that we can come back to where we were doing more violence prevention education. We're able to not cut back on our staff, not layoff people. We had 70 employees two years ago. We now have 60. And that's not all from layoffs.

So some was from programs were ended. They we didn't have funding. But also there's always transition with people I like it I like to think that when people leave POV, they're going on to their next bliss. People going back to college or, you know, getting a a new and a different kind of job. So but so that's that's ten people in two years. That's a lot. Of our workforce. Just that POV. And still the same amount of work to do. Same amount of work, waiting lists. Waiting lists. I know if I could speak to funders, are there any funders or government people or foundation people listening?

I'd say two words waiting lists. There are people waiting to get our services. And the services are life changing. Yes. Necessary? Yeah. Can't buy, you know. Please care about that. Care about the waiting list. People who are ready, willing to make change, seek safety, change their point of view. Become more educated so that they can take their place in the public square. Yeah. That's right. And and that's so important. I mean, when we can share what we know about some experience that is so helpful to someone else going through the same experience, really.

So you also help women get out of situations kind of in emergencies. Yes. Where you might help them find temporary housing. Are you working with other agencies to have beds? Yes. We don't have our own shelter, but we're part of the whole shelter networks, of course. And then we also seek funding so that we can put people in, in, hotel rooms and or motel room as an emergency to get them out of that direct situation. And we also have a housing manager, which is a fairly new position, especially for us because we don't have a shelter. So we are putting people in permanent housing.

We have some staff who are so skillful at this, they can find a place, and when we have the money that we can put a, you know, the first, first month and last month we have we have right now we have some funds that allows that. So worried that that money's going to dry up. Yeah, but that is such a treasured right. It's such a try. And then to give people sometimes some people fleeing abuse or living in their cars with their kids, and then the car breaks down. So there have been situations where we've been able to give money to fix a car just. And that's temporary, right?

That's just fixing the car. Yeah. So there's definitely there's, there's this intersectionality of these social issues, homelessness, domestic violence, sexual violence and the trauma of sexual violence and domestic violence is really fundamental to all the social ills we have. I mean, even mass murder, gun violence has a connection to domestic violence. 40% of the shooters, mass shooters had inflicted some kind of domestic violence on a family member or a known person before they go up and shoot up the supermarket. We ignore this trauma from interpersonal violence at great peril, at great peril, a great peril.

Yes. I like to say to that, look at the state of the world. It's so easy to ignore what's going on in a small way, or to not have enough information about what is possible. If we go down this road so easy to sweep it all under the rug or not, have the funding right to help people prepare for those situations. Well, let me tell you about the good news. Yay! The good news is, a lot of the of people who have been through these different experiences of violence do go from being a victim to a survivor to a thriver and many of them come and work at agencies like ours, or they volunteer at agencies like ours, and they want to get back.

I mean, that's good news. That is excellent. People get on a healing journey and then they become more empowered. They become agents in their own lives. They can make the choices they want to make and then they want to give back. Yeah. I mean, they have empathy for other people in similar situations. And that's where love comes in. Yeah, it sure does. We were speaking with the group called the Compton Cowboys and they tell a similar story. They all became involved with this agency as kids, you know, got them off the streets. It got them away from gangs.

It changed the course of their lives. And they're grown men and this is their livelihood. This is what they intend to do for the rest of their lives because they saw the the benefit, the huge benefit, and all they do is give back to these, these kids and these teenagers and I, they couldn't think of doing anything else. I mean, there are so many wonderful stories like that. So you're right, there's a lot of positive things happening. And, you know, I it took me a long time to tell a piece of my story. My personal story doesn't matter. The reasons why I didn't.

But it took me a while even being in this movement for a long time, I kind of think I had it tucked away, which we can do. You know, we can talk. Oh, I. Love this story. Yeah. Over here. It's too hard to it just. And then you're so good at it, it just doesn't come up. Right. But it still. Does. Yes, but I remember when I was awarded the California Peace Prize and my mom was going to fly out to be there at the, at the luncheon. Right. So I asked her and my mom that was battered by my stepfather, and I had took that away. Even after doing all this work for several years, I came from that family violence.

And I remember when I, I think I was 15, I took my mother by the hand to the police station. Now we're talking before there were shelters, before there were any programs. A really long time ago, when I was a kid, took it by the hand to the police at 15. What was I thinking? I don't know where that came from. We get there and the police didn't know. What? What are you talking about? Broke the door down. What do you mean, drastic violence? What? So my mom said, let's go, let's go. But because of the domestic violence in that in our family, I left home never to leave with my with my mother again.

So my mom's coming out, and I said, you know, I was thinking, mom, I've talked of telling about how when I was a kid, what happened to you? And I said, but I want to ask you permission. Would it be okay if I mentioned this in my speech? Because they want to know why I do what I do. That's what they question. They want me to answer. And I feel like I want to say this, but this is your story, mom, can I tell it? And my mom said, Patti, it's your story. Too true. My mom was she. She had a lot of smarts. She sure did. Yeah, a lot of wisdom at different times, you know?

So yeah. So then it was like I it was like an exhale for me, you know, it's like I really thought of it as my mom's story, not as part of my story. And I was in the movement. Yeah. And look how you were able to separate yourself from it. Yeah, I'll tell you a little story. I remember listening to something on the radio, a report about sexual abuse and, you know, the prevalence and teenagers. And I remember saying to myself, this is so devastating. I cannot believe that this happens to so many young women. I cannot believe that this happens without remembering that it happened to me.

I didn't even consider it until years and years later, I and I, it was like, what were you thinking? You know, look at how you're able to compartmentalize. But that does not mean that that event did not affect who I was. It just hurt so much. I had to put it aside. So much so that I pretended it didn't exist. That's survival. Yeah, but not a healthy way, in my opinion. I mean, we all do what we do. And I think I think those of us who do that, and we all do it in some way, one way or another about all different kinds of things. I think it is. And like until we're ready, it stays where it stays.

And look at look at Dolores Huerta. The latest news kept the secret for 60 years. Isn't that something? And she's not alone. I mean, it is something to consider that that someone can hold on to that for so long. How many of us are doing that? And how many of us are living a life that's not as full as it can be? Because we have to hold on to that? Well, the thing is, I think we have to be careful about judging ourselves and judging others. Yeah. I mean, we all do what we do. Yeah. I guess I come from a place of empathy for people. Who. Are in a position to not be able to carry on as they should because of what is put upon them, not as they should, but as they would really want to if they didn't have to hold on to that thing.

But some of us do some of that compartmentalization and carry on until it's time. Yes, until we're ready. We do. We all do whatever ready means, right? Because, like in my case, I wound up working in domestic violence for years before I claimed my family experience as my own, which was similar to so many people stories that I had been hearing. Right. Yeah. It's not something. And so until I was ready, but I was on my path. So yeah that's the thing, I think those things help us get on our paths. We don't, we're not conscious of it. Right. But that clearly was a motivator.

Yeah. An unconscious motivator for my life a big motivator. And I think for me too, because a lot of what we're dealing with here is how do we finally get to a place where we can let go of the trauma that we've been holding on to? So what else about peace over violence? What's happening going forward. Being able to pivot, stay connected while we go through this particularly rough period of history right now that we're living this living history, that we're going through with threats to the very existence of institutions that we've all revered in the country, educational institutions, different government institutions, nonprofits.

You know, I mean, we've developed the country over the last 50 years, has developed a lot of coalition and alliances and good programs that help people. So right now we have to figure out how to sustain with the threats, underfunding, scarcity of funds. So is when you say pivot is the main thing, how do we keep ourselves going? Because we need some funding. Yeah. And what's or do we we cut back over here because so we can sustain this part. And how do you pick and choose. But yeah it's and we're not alone in this. We're not we're not alone. So it's like, I feel like when I'm when I'm complaining, I feel like I'm complaining for all of us.

I think you are. And you're not the first to have told us this. Everyone we've spoken with has has the same story, right? Right. And it's it's really something that. Yeah, I mean it's obviously it's pervasive. And it's so important to, I think connection for me is, is one of my most important self-care, connecting with others, connecting with my colleagues, connecting with my teams, being part of this movement and respecting the intersectionality of all of the movements, and to be part of movements and help. And hopefully we all help each other to to get through this so that we're there so we can rebuild and reinvent and maybe build back better.

And thank you for bringing that up, because I think that's something a lot of us are not familiar with, is sort of how connected the different organization are and how there's so much support amongst you. I don't think many of us understand that we see separate entities we're not even aware of. Most of the entities. I mean, this has been such a fabulous education for us here because we've discovered that there are so many, yeah, like minded people, you know, really from the bottom of their hearts doing these great things for people who need help.

It's kind of a takes a specialness to go into the nonprofit world. The goal of most nonprofit profits is to do good. I'm not saying businesses don't also want to do good and contribute, but most businesses, it's like really about making money. Yes. The, conundrum with nonprofits because it says nonprofit. But if we don't balance our budgets and make some profit, we can't survive. So we are also a business. And you have to contend with all of that. And we have probably more laws, more audits, more people looking over our shoulders than your average business.

It's hard to stay in alignment. Yeah. So it's it's a tough business to be in in the nonprofit world. But the people are amazing. It attracts amazing. People. I think it does. And and as hard as it is, and I think as sort of stomped on as the nonprofits can be, there's this this greatness about what all of you are doing that comes from the heart. And you're right. It takes a certain kind of individual to sort of persevere because you know, try as you may, there's so many stumbling blocks and yet you keep going. We need more of that in all of our communities.

So thank you for that. Thank you. So if you had to point to what you might say is love in peace over violence, what would that be? Well, a lot of people, when we asked them the word that they want to put over violence when we take their portrait because we are a photography brand, they pick love. I bet they do. So I think it is a kind of very fundamental but lofty. Feeling around, doing this kind of work, doing good, trying to treat people and communities with respect, working in, in our field when especially when it comes to these hard issues, because we have the icky issues, you know, child sexual abuse.

And these are it's not a glamorous industry that we are. You know, you're dealing with unimaginable things. Yeah. Right. And people having their worst day and sometimes worst months and worst years of their lives. It's going to affect them for the rest of their life. Exactly. But then you have such the people who like violence stops with me. Generational violence, it stops with me. And I'm going to help others have it stop with them. And that's just been love to my mind. That's a that's really it's almost there people's. They have a quiet mission of doing that.

I think that's a really good description. Yeah. I think that's what we talk about a lot here too, is that we just have to stop what's been going on for generations. It's been going on in an unhealthy way and find our path to inserting those empty spaces with love and empathy and health and support. So you're doing it. So how do we find you? Where do we go to learn more about you? Websites. Peace over violence.org denim day.org April 29th. I hope people will come to the South lawn of LA City Hall or wherever they are there. Wear your jeans wherever you are.

Where are you? Denim jacket? Go to our shop Denim Day Dawg Shop and buy some swag. You have great swag. We have great swag. We have buttons, we have hats. Our newest hat is it says believe survivors. It's red. It's totally out there. Oh I like believe survivors. And you know I try to explain to people because people get really technical. Well what about how could you believe a survivor was telling a story from 20 years ago? How you, your memory can't, you know? So I try to explain what we mean by believe survivors that when somebody is telling you their truth.

All they want you to do is to take it in and listen. They're not asking you to comment or judge them. You're not in a, you know, in a jury trial where you have to weigh the evidence. It's completely different. Like if if you're telling me your story now, I why would I go in a mindset like, oh, I wonder if Cynthia is accurate in her memory? You know, you're talking about your feelings. You know what happened to you as you remember it now from back then. Listen. Listen very openly, without judgment. You know how much better off we all be if we could judge less in general.

Because clearly that judgment or the idea of judgment, or assuming you'll be judged is pervasive. It stops us in our track. We can't share. Soliciting means receiving be the receptacle to receive. Let the person tell their story, tell their truth. They'll know if you're sincerely listening or not. So don't fake it. Yeah, I think so. I say don't fake it. It's it'll be obvious. And if someone wanted to provide some amount of funding, they can do that at your website also. Oh, absolutely. Both. Yeah. Because a denim day for us is also a fundraiser for us to do our violence prevention work, and particularly in schools.

And, we have a, we have a wonderful Youth Over Violence summer institute where we take about 30 kids from different schools in Los Angeles, and they come to, our headquarters in downtown LA and go through about 4 or 5 weeks of learning about all of these things. Teen dating violence, what is a healthy relationship? How can you be an upstander for someone else? You know how to listen? What is consent really? Probe that with young people. What is consent? What does that mean? The work we do with youth. We have a curriculum called In Touch In Touch with teens, which is fabulous.

So all about teaching kids how to have healthy relationships. And it's interesting when kids come in the summer, they come in the summer, and they stick with us for the rest of the school year. And they organize students together, organizing piece clubs on their high school and middle school campuses. And they so they become teachers and educators for their peers. That's how we make change. Yeah, that's really something. And in youth and youth. Absolutely. These are young people. And you know what we've seen over the last 10 or 15 years because we always do a pretest and a post-test.

So as to what they know about some of the myths, you know, about what does consent mean? And, you know, do girls lie about the, you know, all these different things, right? And now when they're coming to us, they know a lot already. So that's telling us that the level of education is increasing on these issues out there. That is great. That is such good news. How do these youngsters come to you for this sort of. They apply, they apply and usually they come from all different schools. And what's remarkable is, you know how young teenagers are. They don't like to go anywhere by themselves.

You don't have to go in a little pack. Yeah. With your best friend or a little group. Well, they come from these disparate schools all over L.A. Show up the first day. They don't know anybody. Without their. Packs, without their pack. By day three, they're a pack. I mean, these kids are brilliant. I mean, they're amazing. But first of all, you have kids who are interested in violence prevention. Right? There is hopeful. It is hopeful. And I mean, it is all around us. But do you think that a lot of those kids are coming from situations where they're sort of seeing it firsthand?

Of course, of across the board? I mean, a variety. They come from different communities, right? Different fam, different kinds of families. It is interesting when you think about the world or people we know, there's almost no one who isn't. It to some degree associated with some amount of violence being American. You know, violence is as American as apple pie, unfortunately, but pretty violent. And I guess that's why some of us exist to kind of try to counter that. Yeah, that's why you're here. That's why I'm here. It is. Thank you. Thank you for doing this again.

I'm really grateful. And I mean, you're awesome. What you're doing is just fabulous. And that you've been doing it for so long, and it's clearly something you're passionate about. Well, I do it with a lot of great people. You do my staff or volunteers, our board and our and the people who come through the door and our colleagues and our, you know, the other domestic violence and rape crisis centers and homelessness groups, the shelters, you know, it's I'm glad I follow this path. I'm glad you did, too. I feel like I've benefited in so many ways, and that to go to work every day, to know that I am part of a much larger community and I'm part of a movement to do good, it's pretty satisfying.

It is. And I. Love So Grateful. There's a light that's sort of being shown upon this, I think now and maybe it's because we're desperate, we're losing so much funding. Maybe, maybe that's bringing more of it to light because we're seeing the results of not being able to take care of some of these things. Well, thank you, Patti. Thank you. Thanks for taking time. Really appreciate it. Please follow, rate and share this podcast and pass this episode along to someone who might need it. This is and now love to listen to your dreams and. Live from your heart.

And.