4 Violence Prevention Truths

Violence prevention is a complex, multi-disciplinary collection of evidence-based strategies that coexist together.

These are the 4 violence prevention truths. They are interconnected and they exist simultaneously.

📣We can hold assailants accountable and acknowledge that perpetrators are 100% the ONLY ones to blame for violence.

📣We can support survivors, not judge their reactions in the moment, and affirm that whatever they did to survive their situation was the right thing to do.

📣We can harness our individual power and acknowledge that empowerment focused self-defense education IS effective for prevention, response, and healing. Learning skills to do so empowers us in every aspect our lives, not just as a response to violence.

📣Fundamental societal change is necessary to eliminate violence at its core, at all levels around the world.

I've said it before and I'll continue saying it: violence prevention isn't an "either/or" conversation. It's a dialectic conversation which means we don't have to choose just 1 solution to implement. We need them ALL. That's why I partner with so many amazing organizations who are doing this work from all angles.

The reality is that culture change takes time and violence exists right now.

While we all actively work to create a world without violence, we also deserve to have access to life saving and evidence-based safety and protection skills. These help us be prepared to deal with the issues of today from a place of confidence and agency.

Empowerment-based self-defense, which is what I teach, also fundamentally works to dismantle the ways that gender-based inequities facilitate harm, making it a powerful primary prevention method.

As a survivor, that is why I do this work and why I'll continue to do so.