Hi Rola,
All apologies for the delay in replying to your query as I was on vacation, even advisors need a break every now and again. That said, thank you so much for visiting the Community Tool Box (CTB) and Ask an Advisor, we hope you'll find our advice to be timely, accurate, useful, and directly applicable to your community change effort. So Rola, if I understand you correctly, you want to start a community initiative to prevent domestic violence in the African immigrant communities, correct? Well, you've come to the right place because we have all the resources you need to do just that. However, let me be clear that undertaking such vital community work is, well, just that - work. It also takes time, persistence, resilience, patience, fortitude, and just a bit of luck to go from no initiative to community change. This is not meant to discourage your efforts, rather to give you realistic expectations.
Okay, let’s begin. The best way I think I can help you is to first provide resources available and specific to Atlanta in the form of existing domestic violence prevention programs that are likely doing what you want to do. My strong suggestion, before you develop and implement your own initiative (I'll share our CTB resources below if you decide that's your preferred course of action) is to get in touch with them and find ways in which you might be able to form working relationships and collaborations. It won't hurt to ask for a meeting to explain what you want to do and why you want to do it; I guarantee they will be more than willing to listen and more than likely to want to help. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel if there are perfectly good wheels already rolling along to which you can hitch your wagon, so to speak. Okay, here are the resources I found through a Google search:
Tapestri Refugee and Immigrant Coalition: http://www.tapestri.org/
Faith Trust Institute: http://www.faithtrustinstitute.org/index.php
Men Stopping Violence: http://www.menstoppingviolence.org
Georgia Coalition Against Domestic Violence: http://gcadv.org/general-resources/domestic-violence-centers/
Women's Resource Center to End Domestic Violence: http://www.wrcdv.org/
Stronghold Atlanta: http://www.strongholdatlanta.org/
Partnership Against Domestic Violence: http://padv.org/about-us/programsservices/#.V3Fyiqbn_rc
Promise Place: http://promiseplace.org/
Travelers Aid of Metropolitan Atlanta: http://www.travelersaidatlanta.org/
Again, I strongly urge you to contact each of these organizations before developing and implementing your own intervention. If nothing else they can provide insight as to how they got started and the lessons they learned in getting their respective initiatives up and running. Below are other organizations you might find helpful, including:
The Georgia Commission on Family Violence: http://gcfv.georgia.gov/
Live Your Dreams: http://www.liveyourdream.org/our-dream/ending-violence-against-women/dom...
The Feminist Majority Foundation: http://www.feminist.org/other/dv/dvfact.html
The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control: http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/ipvfacts.htm
The National Domestic Violence Hotline: http://www.ndvh.org.
As I mentioned above, the CTB has plenty of resources if you want to develop and implement your own initiative. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the CTB and what we have to offer so I want you to start with a primer on the CTB to give you a better sense of what we do and what we have to offer. We'll take them in the order in which I think they should be reviewed.
1) Begin on the CTB home page. Click on the "About" button at the top right of the page. Click on "About the Tool Box" and review this section.
2) Begin on the CTB home page. Click on the "About" button at the top right of the page. Scroll down to "How to Use the Tool Box," click it on, and review this section.
3) Begin on the CTB home page. Click on the "Help Taking Action" button at the top left of the page. Scroll down to and click on "A Model for Getting Started" and review this section. If you review no other section, please review this one.
4) Begin on the CTB home page. Click on the "Help Taking Action" button at the top left of the page. Scroll down to and click on "Best Change Processes" and review this section.
5) Begin on the CTB home page. Click on the "Help Taking Action" button at the top left of the page. Scroll down to and click on "Troubleshooting Guide" and review those sections that make the most sense to you. From my perspective, sections: 1. We need to understand the community or situation better; 2. We don’t understand the problem or goal; and 3. We don't know what to do to solve the problem will be the best sections to review at this stage of your initiative.
6) Last, begin on the CTB home page. Click on the "Help Taking Action" button at the top left of the page. Scroll down to and click on "Online Courses." If you're unsure about how to effect community change then taking a sequence of free, online courses may be the way to go.
Next, the CTB has 16 toolkits that will help you in all facets of your community work. Although it appears to be a rather daunting task to get through them all, if you take them one by one in the order in which they're presented I think this will provide you with the guidance you need to get your initiative going. First, click on the "Learn A Skill" button at the top left of the CTB home page. Next, click on "Toolkits" which help you get a quick start on key activities in community work. Accessing specific toolkits that are closest to what you are doing provides outlines of key tasks, examples, and links to more detailed instructional sections. For my money (ironically, CTB resources are free), toolkits are the best resources in the CTB. If you go with my first suggestion, collaborating with organizations already hard at work in Atlanta on the domestic violence issue, then start with toolkit 1. Creating and Maintaining Partnerships. If however, you decide on your own course of action (not recommended, but I understand why you'd want to), then begin toolkit 2. Assessing Community Needs and Resources followed by toolkits 3. Analyzing Problems and Goals; 4. Developing a Framework or Model of Change; 5. Developing Strategic and Action Plans; and 7. Developing an Intervention. You can come back to the other toolkits as needed.
So, in sum Rola, my strongest suggestion is finding collaborators and partners for your work. If that doesn't interest you then review the sections about the CTB and then work through toolkits 1 - 5 and 7; that will get you going for sure. With that, thank you Rola for wanting to effect change in your community and for visiting the CTB and Ask an Advisor as your point of departure. We with you nothing but the best of success in your endeavors. If you find that our reply doesn't quite hit the mark, please come back and visit and we'll work together to find a viable alternative. Be well, take care, do good work!
Cheers,
Ask an Advisor
