An Oasis at Home
[submitted to the Oasis Project via TeachMac; I have granted the Oasis Project permission to use this material in whatever means they would like]
Your home is your place of refuge from the world. It’s the place where you nurture and are nurtured, where you give and receive love, where you rest. When you walk in the door of your house, you enter an environment that you have created, a place with your own comforts, creations, memories. Your home protects you from the elements - the wind, rain, heat and cold outside as well as the daily battles, disagreements, fights, obligations and annoyances of the outside world.
You host parties in your home, inviting others to share in your comforts and enjoy your collection of memories. You raise children in your home, giving them a safe place to grow, learn, explore the world and themselves. You have pets in your home, showing and teaching responsibility to other living things by caring for and enjoying other creatures.
Your home is the best place in the world.
But for victims of domestic violence, all of this is turned upside down. What should be a place of nurture in stead becomes a place of torture. What should be the place of rest from the day’s troubles, in stead becomes an escalation of suffering. A collection of comforts becomes a heap of horrors. In stead of protection there is only fear. Rather than comfort there is condemnation. Physical rest and growth changes to terror and injury.
Their haven has become a war zone.
There is a way out for them, however, but as in most wars, victory comes with help from the outside. Domestic violence is a closed system that will not stop itself. The solution lies in intervention from those outside the system. The Oasis Project gives women and children who have had their homes taken away by domestic violence - the refugees of this war - the safe place of nurture that they need. The comfort and protection that was unavailable now becomes available for these women. They can finally let their guard down, finally rest, finally grow, finally heal.
Support the Oasis Project. Your gifts help heal the wounds of the war of domestic violence. Your contribution helps end some of the suffering, helps provide for them what you probably already have - a safe place to rest, grow, love and be loved.
Help for victims of domestic violence comes from you and me.
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