Difficult Decisions: It’s Time to Step Up

Posted on July 19, 2012 by Narissa

Today United Way for Great Austin informed 21 non-profit organizations they were pulling funding, starting July 1, 2012. These funding cuts were a reflection of the reduction of funding to UWATX’s campaigns. You can read more detail here on UWATX’s blog.

These cuts, news of which leaked via one agency taking matters into their own hands this evening, impacts agencies with both small and larger budgets, but one thing is consistent: UWATX is seeing a drop in donations and so are these agencies. So I start with a call to action: Find the organizations that you care about and make a gift. No matter how small your gift has an impact.

I understand that decisions to defund nonprofit partners isn’t an easy one. It is not something anyone or any organization wants to face – much less have to do. There is certain to be some debate about today’s decisions, but the important thing to remember is we are all here to better our community.

The role UWATX plays in the community is an important one: they make giving accessible and support programs that make our community stronger. When facing hard times, hard decisions must be made.

What will be interesting to see is which of these non-profit organizations leverage this high profile opportunity best to capture the public’s eye and their donation dollars to make up some of the shortfall.

AIDS Services of Austin
Austin Groups for the Elderly
Any Baby Ca n
Bastrop County Food Pantry
BiG Austin
Capital IDEA
Care Communities
Family Eldercare
Frameworks
Foundation Communities
Goodwill
LifeWorks
Manos De Cristo
Meals on Wheels and More
PeopleFund
People’s Community Clinic
Project Transitions
SafePlace
Salvation Army
Volunteer Healthcare Clinic
Williamson Burnet County Opportunities

~NJ

Use the Words: Rape and Sexual Assault

Posted on April 21, 2012 by Narissa

I have a problem with how media talks about sexual assault and rape. They tip toe around it as though it’s uncomfortable – including the words that describe the crimes. The words are nasty and dirty; not fit for civilized society. By not using the words that call this crime by name, we miss the opportunity to make us all uncomfortable and outraged by the fact that these crimes occur. We make a survivor feel as though they cannot even utter the words… much less report the crime.

In a break during my evening I did a quick scroll through Twitter and found a Tweet from a news outlet:

Make rape less "unspeakable.

Police looking for burglar who assaulted woman bit.ly/IdMDEg

But the story behind the tweet and story’s headline was about a woman who woke in her home, to an intruder raping her. Not merely assaulting her, but sexually violating her – otherwise known as rape.

To make matters worse, the second paragraph says: “The woman was not injured, said Austin Police Sgt. Katrina Pruitt at a briefing at police headquarters.”. Um… what? When did forcing sex upon an unwilling participant not injure the victim?

Media needs to start reporting sexual assault and rape as the heinous acts they are rather than using language that allow people to not feel the brunt of how horrible these crimes are. Police spokespeople need to stop treating sexual assault like it is a minor crime. Sexual assault is a 2^nd degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Rape is ugly – the word and the act. Bonus: for a Tweet, it’s four characters fewer than “assaulted”. #DoubleWin!

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