is to promote information about what domestic and family violence and abuse really is to as many people as possible. I want to put this information and other helpful information and phone number out there where it is easily accessible. I want this page to be a beacon of light shining everywhere because you cannot stop something like domestic and family violence and abuse if you don't know what it is.

Here is a short speech I delivered just after I decided to make the web site:

Stop Domestic Violence and Abuse

Before you can stop anything you have to know what it is!

Since I left my now ex-husband, about 3 years ago, I have been trying to think up ways to promote information about what domestic violence and abuse really entails. Living in the women's shelter for several months I realised just how much of it is around. But what could I do to help get the message out there?

When I left my ex I had no idea that I had survived domestic violence of various types - mostly verbal, social and financial - since my early teens. This came as a complete shock to me because as a child I had vowed never to live in such a relationship or subject my children to it like most of my aunties' had. I felt like a complete failure! There was worse to come. I found out more about what my ex did behind my back and different kinds of abuse he dished out. He did the whole kit and caboodle - physical, emotional, verbal, sexual, social, financial and spiritual!

To this day my ex still claims that there was no domestic violence in our house because he never yelled a lot or hit me! Domestic violence and abuse is so much more. How could I get the message out there to others? I did not know how so put it in the back of my mind.

Recently I read an article about domestic violence posted on Facebook by one of my nieces. I furiously started thinking of ways to spread this message - short talks and handing out leaflets at schools and churches was one, getting more pamphlets out into the community another, but I could not do them.

Then I remembered the one thing I can do well - web pages!! So I have started up a sub-domain under my religious web page which gets about 1000 hits a month. Its title is - Stop Domestic and Family Violence and Abuse!

This page will cover domestic and family abuse of all kinds - child, men, women and elders - in all its various forms - physical, emotional, verbal, sexual, social, financial, cultural and spiritual. I will also be including a page with stories and poem from victims - if you would like to add yours you are welcome.

This is only one way to promote the various forms of domestic violence and abuse, but it is something that I can do. Maybe over time I will be able to do more to get this information out to those who really need it, like I did.