Reunion Online

Today, June 30 marks a crossroads for the Joyful Heart Foundation—a time of reflecting on all that we have accomplished this year together and of navigating the road that lies ahead of us. The destination? The end of violence and abuse.

Over the past several weeks, the colors of the ENDTHEBACKLOG.org map, which demonstrates everything we currently know about the rape kit backlog nationwide, have been changing.

With Mother's Day quickly approaching, I have been thinking about how I want to honor, bring joy and express gratitude to my mom and other special women in my life.

As is true with the process of healing from childhood trauma, finding a community of partners has been key to the success of the work of 1in6 since our founding days, over seven years ago. 

ENDTHEBACKLOG.org, Joyful Heart's website devoted to shining a light on and ending this injustice, has been nominated for a Webby Award for Best Activism website, one of the most prestigious honors a website can achieve.

All survivors—women and men, boys and girls—have suffered enough. It's time we spoke openly, intelligently and compassionately about the men who have suffered the trauma of abuse.

A year ago, NO MORE launched a national campaign to end domestic violence and sexual assault. I had the chance to sit down with Joyful Heart’s CEO, Maile Zambuto, and the Creative Director of the NO MORE PSAs, Rachel Howald to get the behind the scenes look at the campaign.

It was middle school. I was playing a game in my head, scrambling letters of words to make other words. I thought of “grape” and all the words I could make using it: ape, pea, are, rap, peg. “What about rape?” I thought to myself. "Is that a word?" I asked my friend’s mom, my ride home that day, and her face immediately turned red. She said to never use it again. It was a “bad word.”

This Valentine’s Day, we ask you to start this conversation about domestic violence and healthy relationships in whatever way you can.