One of my chief complaints about the community of survivors of childhood sexual abuse was that there was no active message board for the community. Organizations that claim to be the voice of survivors do not always network survivors for mutual support or to allow a forum for topics of interest. Planning and discussion seem to be a back room thing in the more nationally recognized groups. Networking is accomplished through discussion across the community of interest.
A forum has been up on-line for a while that may be a useful tool for survivors and their supporters. It is called “Victims of Silence” and it offers survivors a location to go to start discussion threads, debate issues in our community of interest and allow for networking. As with any message board, the success or failure of the discussion threads rests with the participation of the community that is using it. You will also run into personalities who take strong stands on issues.
It is a tool. Like any tool, it is only useful if people use it correctly. The exchange of ideas in any community of interest is very important. When a relatively small group of people, especially those who were not selected by that community, control the dialogue many voices are lost. Here is a location on-line that will afford us the opportunity to talk to each other, pass information on events, pending legislation, protests, key topics of interest and resources for survivors. If we do not use the opportunity, it will be lost.
I hope that the threads remain civil. All too often in the survivor community, people take things very personally and character attacks displace the expression of differing ideas. I know I have gotten my share of hate mail when I called for a change in a national victims group. I would hope that people will agree to disagree. It is when we start openly bickering and attacking each other that our message is lost to society as a whole.
If you are working on survivor issues and wish to get your message out, you may want to try using the “Victims of Silence“ message board. It is time we had a national/international discussion without a filter from a national organization that is not willing to use the tools available in the 21st century to foster a dialogue and actually network survivors. If you have something to say, say it!
I am still looking for bloggers in this area to add to blog roll I created for this area of discussion. If you would like to have your blog added, please email me. I will be happy to add your link to “Off My Knees” and add you to my blog feed for our community of interest.
Off My Knees - A Blog by Michael Baumann 