Denverites Against Domestic Violence Favorite 

Date: 

Apr 30 2020

Location: 

Denver, Colorado

March 26, 2020, a day that most people will remember as the day that Colorado began enforcing the “Stay-at-home” order. Suddenly, grocery stores would be ransacked of milk, eggs, and toilet paper. All of the “essentials” of course. As panic buying plagued the population of Colorado, many others began to fear for completely different reasons.

The fear of having to stay at home, transfer to online learning, virtual work meetings, and learning how to cook is something many of us thought we would never have to deal with. But, what about those who don’t have a safe home.

According to the Denver Post, as of April 27th, there were 542 domestic violence crimes in the county of Denver alone. In addition, the Colorado Attorney General reported a total of 32 domestic violence related deaths in 2018. On any given day the national domestic violence hotline will be called approximately 21,000 time. Meaning, on any given day, this nation has 21,000 people that are experiencing some form of domestic violence.

So, how do domestic violence rates pertain to the worldwide Corona Virus Pandemic? In the United States, mothers, fathers, and children that are victims of Domestic violence are being locked into homes with a perpetrator. There is no escape, no going to work to be away in safety for eight hours. No going to friends or families house to escape potential physical and mental harm.

As we are starting to reopen, with the “Safer at Home” tactics to fight corona virus, we must consider that title itself. Those who do not live with an abusive partner may have become accustomed to feeling safe inside their homes, but this is simply not the case for many of the victims of domestic violence in the city of Denver.

The victims of domestic violence are not only faced with the fear of getting sick, the fear of job loss, and the fear of losing friends or family members to the virus, they are also in fear of staying at home because their livelihood and well-being are being put at risk. Not only from the novel corona virus, but also the people that they live with. The mandatory stay-at-home orders have put many in an extraordinarily difficult situation.

This is not to discredit the pandemic that is happening and the seriousness of mass causality that is happening all over the world. Rather, this is a reminder to recognize the injustices and lack of resources for many people that might be our neighbors, as well as, to recognize the lack of preparedness in these situations.

It is the responsibility of the people and the government to ensure equality and safety for everyone, so why is there no plan in place to provide resources to those who need it most. If a safer-at-home order is being placed on all that live in Denver, shouldn’t we as a community be assuring that those homes are in fact safe?

There are many organizations that are using the resources they have to help those in need. One of these, Violence Free Colorado, has advice on what you can do to help pinned at the top of their Facebook page. There are many different things that you can do to help this non-profit to continue to bring aid to the victims of domestic violence through donations of time, money, or supplies.

Posted by madiorourke on

Staff rating: 

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Effectiveness

How does this project help?

Timeframe For change

The goal of this project was for one, to raise awareness around the impact of COVID-19 on victims of Domestic Violence. The second goal was to raise money to be donated to a local nonprofit, Violence Free Colorado, in order to help help this organization to better provide for those who were locked in homes with perpetrators of domestic violence.

Notes

From the project so far it has been fairly effective. There have been posters placed in different parks (as people are utilizing parks more now), there have been articles made avalible, and the donation has got up to $170 within two days of running.