April 2021 One in six boys and one in four girls will experience sexual assault before the age of 18, and 93% of sexual assaults are perpetrated by people victims know. April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month and we have been raising awareness through numerous posts on our social media. Our staff have also been participating by wearing teal on Tuesdays. For ways in which you and your organization can also raise awareness, please visit this link on our website. In this edition, we want to tell you about a collaboration currently underway between YWCA Northeast Indiana and the RespectTeam. Please see below for the scoop! We also want to take a moment to spotlight our racial justice work and bring your attention to our latest blog post in our Racial Justice 101 blog series, which debunks some myths on sex trafficking and demonstrates how the Black community is being disproportionately targeted. Our Power of Persimmon initiative features Amy Hanna, executive director of the RespectTeam, and Andrea Mills, a board member of YWCA Northeast Indiana and mom extraordinaire. Read all about these fabulous empowering women! We highlight Dawn Rosemond, a partner with Barnes & Thornburg, as our empowering leader in our Empowering Leaders video series. Rosemond’s personality is contagious! Click on the video below to see why she is our choice for this month’s empowering leader. Join us in standing against racism! Stand Against Racism takes place in April and is a signature campaign of YWCA USA to raise awareness. Please read more below, and look for our social media postings that will run today through Sunday. We hope you will do your part in standing against racism by sharing our posts! Lastly, we have a couple of opportunities to share. First, we are need of a few good folks to join our team! We have open interviews running TODAY! See information below. Also, we are preparing for our 25th annual Circle event. This will be an event you won’t want to miss! SAVE THE DATE!! October 21, 2021. And, we couldn’t end this newsletter without mentioning our Goldstein Family Scholarship Program. Learn more by clicking the link at the bottom this newsletter. We do all we do because of you. We are thankful for your ongoing support of our mission. “Somehow, the idea of respect seems to have been forgotten in today’s culture. Teen culture says that respecting yourself and respecting others isn’t important. The RespectTeam wants to change that by teaching students how respect has the power to change their lives for the better.” The RespectTeam is a nonprofit speaking organization who’s mission is to encourage healthy respect of self and others through educational programs and relevant connections to the community. The RespectTeam has a three-part vision: To educate students at no cost in public and private schools and other locations about the topics of healthy self-respect and healthy respect of others. To empower those that live with and work with teenagers with information on topics of healthy self-respect and healthy respect of others. To engage students with the community through connections with organizations and businesses that serve as resources for teenagers and their families. YWCA Northeast Indiana looks forward to collaborating with the RespectTeam to develop a sexual assault awareness curriculum that we plan to pilot in the fall. Racial Justice “The disproportionate victimization of Black women and girls within sex trafficking is evidence of institutional racism; combined with misleading portrayals of trafficking on social media, sex trafficking remains a significant issue for the Black community and Indiana in general.” Read our most recent Racial Justice 101 blog post, which focuses on debunking some common myths and refocusing the conversation on how the Black community is disproportionately targeted and affected by sex trafficking and related sexual offenses and crimes. YWCA Northeast Indiana’s Racial Justice 101 blog series seeks to educate and bring awareness to the public health crisis that racism brings to our community. Through this blog series, we work towards our mission to eliminate racism. Check out our past blog topics on our website. YWCA Northeast Indiana’s Power of Persimmon initiative honors empowered women who diligently seek to help empower other women through mentorship, networking, and education. Kudos to these remarkable women Amy Hanna is the Executive Director of the RespectTeam, a non-profit organization that provides educational programs centered on self-respect and respecting others as well as empowering programs for parents and those impacting the lives of teens. To Amy, “an empowering woman empowers women with no expectation of selfish gain and no hidden agenda.” Learn more about Amy here. Andrea Mills is a board member with YWCA Northeast Indiana and a mom extraordinaire! To Andrea, “being an empowering woman means being a cheerleader, an advocate, and a friend; building other women up, instead of tearing them down; and being the voice that says “you can” and not “you cannot”. An empowering woman means offering the very same support to others that I desire in my own life.” Read more about how Andrea empowers others here. Stay tuned to upcoming newsletters to see who will be featured next in Power of Persimmon! Thank you to our media partner, Glo Magazine We’re Hiring We are holding open interviews TODAY (4/22) for Residential Assistant & Crisis Services Assistant positions! Come to The Guesthouse, 1313 West Washington Center Road between 8am and 5pm! Applicants can apply online prior to coming in for the interviews. Make sure to wear a mask and bring a valid driver’s license and your current auto insurance. To view job description, visit our website. We are prepared to move quickly on qualified candidates! 25th Annual Circle Event SAVE THE DATE! October 21, 2021 You won’t want to miss our 25th annual Circle event. It’ll be an experience to remember! Keep your eyes open for more information in the months to come. Dawn Rosemond Featured in this month’s Empowering Leaders Video Series is Dawn Rosemond, Partner with Barnes & Thornburg LLC. Learn more about Dawn here. Thank you to Dawn Rosemond for being our featured empowering leader! We are also thankful for our corporate partner, Fort Wayne Metals, for sponsoring this initiative. Stand Against Racism Stand Against Racism takes place annually in April and is a signature campaign of YWCA USA to raise awareness about the negative impact of institutional and structural racism in our communities and to build community among those who work for racial justice. Learn more about this campaign here. Watch our social media today through Sunday (4/22-4/25) as we share content related to Stand Against Racism. Goldstein Family Scholarship Program The goal of the Goldstein Family Scholarship Program is to help female survivors of domestic violence improve their self-sufficiency and quality of life by completing higher education. The scholarship fund provides financial support for tuition, books, rent, utilities, and childcare. Learn more here.