Jeni Ambrose, Founder and Executive Director, MapYourVoice
Ulla brings this initiative to our attention.

More than 1.14 billion people around the world — 18% of the world’s population — are currently suffering from sexual violence in silence

Sexual violence, according to the World Health Organization, is a “global health problem of epidemic proportion.” It impacts people of every ethnicity, gender, age, religion, and political orientation. There is hardly a single person on this planet who doesn’t know someone who has been through sexual violence…maybe you yourself have been through sexual violence…?

While being sexually violated is one of the worst things that can happen to a person, suffering alone without help makes recovery and returning to normal life nearly impossible. With 87% of survivors staying silent, sexual violence destroys the lives of its victims as well as wreaking havoc upon our communities — in essence, we all suffer the fallout of sexual violence.

The MapYourVoice solution

MapYourVoice is a powerful yet user-friendly social web mapping platform strategically designed to reach survivors in every corner of the globe and bridge the gap between sexual traumatization and recovery. The platform is designed to help over 1 billion sexual trauma survivors by giving them a safe place to:

Reclaim their voices by anonymously reporting their sexual victimization(s)
Discover they are not alone by witnessing other survivors’ courage AND by joining in our moderated anonymous social network
Access the most comprehensive, pre-vetted network of survivor support organizations to get the help they need to recover.
MapYourVoice’s primary mission is bridging the gap between trauma and recovery by addressing the 3 main needs of a sexual violence survivor:

Report – Having a safe place to tell what happened so they can leave the shadows of secrecy and shame most survivors live in after being assaulted.
Support – Accessing appropriate help — whether it be protection, medical attention, a safe harbor, counseling, information, legal support, etc.
Community – And, discovering they are not alone — AND that others care and can relate to what they’ve been through…reconnecting with caring people.
“MapYourVoice offers a real solution to the global epidemic of sexual violence.”

– Santa Barbara Supervisor (and U.S. Congressional candidate) Salud Carbajal

BIG DATA to end sexual violence

A key objective of MapYourVoice is to provide the data to resolve the global epidemic of sexual violence. Because survivors are silent, the data is missing to resolve this huge problem — we lack local, regional, national, and global data…it just isn’t there. The aggregate data collected through the anonymous survivor intake questionnaires, will be used to serve public health, law enforcement, policy makers, academia, survivor advocates, and more — all in efforts to end sexual violence.

Help us make MapYourVoice a reality

With this crowdfunding campaign, we are hoping to raise the $35K needed to build a Beta version of MapYourVoice. This Beta, which includes both basic desktop and mobile version, will allows us to:

Lay the groundwork for core functionality.
Start working with partners within public health, religious organizations, and survivor support organizations.
Give potential major funders, supporters, foundations and policy makers a chance to witness the functioning platform and its potential for full scale implementation.
And most importantly, make MapYourVoice live so sexual violence survivors can start using it and getting the help they need ASAP.
Join the MapYourVoice global movement to end sexual violence!

We need your help to make the global solution that MapYourVoice offers a reality… MapYourVoice has a solid potential to make global sea change around the issue of sexual violence. Harnessing the viral potential of social media, MapYourVoice will ignite a “chain reaction effect” of survivors mapping their voices. Each survivor’s voice will make the MapYourVoice Voice Counter rise — along with a global sense of urgency to address the issue of sexual violence. If everyone who cares about this issue gives what they can…even if it is a small amount …and spreads the word, encouraging others to do the same …MapYourVoice will have the very real potential of changing the world. Please generously give what you can to make MapYourVoice available to sexual violence survivors now. Participation is the key.

Let’s rise up and do this together! 1.14 Billion people need you to raise your voice to help them reclaim theirs.

Our sincere thanks,

Jeni Ambrose
MapYourVoice Executive Director

– See more at: http://www.mapyourvoice.org/#sthash.L68OSwdy.dpuf