VOICES OF STRENGTH - NEW AUDIO DOCUMENTARY FOR SURVIVORS!

Hi there everybody!

I have been speaking to survivor advocate Haullie Free over the past 2 or 3 months, and I have agreed to participate by telling part of my story on her new audio documentary, Voices of Strength. Haullie was the founder and producer of "Surviving the Truth" an excellent audio documentary for survivors. Voices of Strength will vary a little bit from the original documentary, but the point will still be to make the voices of 13 women survivors, and 2 men survivors heard about what they experienced and survived.

50% of all proceeds from the documentary will go to RAINN, the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, a United States wide 24 hour hotline for rape and sexual abuse survivors.

Once the website is fully launched, you should be able to purchase Voices of Strength, along with the music compilation, Mindful Lullabies, a survivor's magazine, and any other projects that Haullie cooks up!

I believe a goal of Haullie's is to get a copy of the documentary sent to every rape crisis center possible. With Surviving the Truth, she had a deal: purchase the documentary, then fill out a form, and she would donate a copy to your local rape crisis center.

I will be sitting in on some of the production of the CD as I live in the town Haullie is now based in. It's a very exciting prospect, and I can't wait to watch it come together.

~~~~ Watch this space for more info on my part of the recording, the production, and everything after! ~~~~

6/4/2006: Haullie should be launching VoicesofStrength.org any day or any hour now! I am very excited.



^^^^^^ Annaleigh left, Haullie right ^^^^^^

I had a very fun and wonderful first meeting with Haullie! I visited her at her home, and we alternated sitting around yacking and taking pics for the Voices of Strength sleeve. She showed me her progress in working on the sleeve, the website, etc. She gave me a lovely "Pandora's Box". We are enjoying each other as friends, survivors, and activists. We are having a great time.

10/19/2006 -- Finally! I have some pics of my Pandora's Box. Now you can see how wonderfully artistic Haullie is!







To Share A Bit About My Voices of Strength experiences: Right from the get-go since I have gotten into activism, I have dialogued with many people, survivors, supporters, and people who are simply concerned. This has sped up since I joined with Haullie and the other survivors to be part of VoS. I get PMs, I get emails. One woman thanked me for my part, saying that she wasn't ready to hear the trailer yet, but when she felt strong enough, she would. That she has the courage to try to listen to the trailer one day,is very inspiring. You know the Tori Amos lyric "How a lion becomes a mouse?" I think some of you were mice (who perhaps were once lions) and now you are evolving into bold, brave, lions. It's a priviledge to watch this take place. Thank you to Haullie for dreaming up this project!


^^ I painted this while visiting Haullie for a couple days!^^

2/18/2007 - Haullie and I had a fun visit for a couple days about a week ago. It was a sleepover, and we had junk food, watched the Wizard of Oz, talked quite a bit, and didn't even talk about being survivors or about activism all that much. It's always important to pull yourself away from constant discussion of abuse. Sometimes you just need to have a little fun.

I also cannot say for sure yet, but Haullie and I may be working on a collaboration in our town. I will keep you all posted on that one.

P.S. - Be sure to go to Voices of Strength and check out the latest survivor digest! ;)

As Waters Passing By > Voices of Strength Updates