Finding Our Voices recognizes Domestic Abuse Awareness month with survivor-powered activities
Governor Janet Mills helped to hang the Finding Our Voices exhibit of posters at the Scarborough Public Library, Sept. 29, 2022, launching Domestic Abuse Awareness Month, along with students from Scarborough High School and the library's Teen Advisory Board. (Photo courtesy Patrisha McLean)
Whitney Files, CEO of the Penobscot YMCA, with the Finding Our Voices poster of author Deborah Gould, who is leading one of three Maine Humanities Council discussion groups on domestic violence, creativity and resilience. (Photo by Patrisha McLean)
Governor Janet Mills (left) and Finding Our Voices founder Patrisha McLean. (Photo courtesy Patrisha McLean)
Governor Janet Mills helped to hang the Finding Our Voices exhibit of posters at the Scarborough Public Library, Sept. 29, 2022, launching Domestic Abuse Awareness Month, along with students from Scarborough High School and the library's Teen Advisory Board. (Photo courtesy Patrisha McLean)
Whitney Files, CEO of the Penobscot YMCA, with the Finding Our Voices poster of author Deborah Gould, who is leading one of three Maine Humanities Council discussion groups on domestic violence, creativity and resilience. (Photo by Patrisha McLean)
Governor Janet Mills (left) and Finding Our Voices founder Patrisha McLean. (Photo courtesy Patrisha McLean)
Finding Our Voices is breaking the silence of domestic abuse in a big way during Domestic Abuse Awareness month of October with survivor-powered activities across Knox and Waldo counties and beyond.
On three Thursdays in October, Finding Our Voices is collaborating with the Maine Humanities Council for a discussion series on Domestic Violence, Creativity, and Resilience.
These online discussions, from 7 to 8:30 p.m., are free and the public can register for one or more by emailing Patrisha McLean, founder/president of Finding Our Voices, at hello@findingourvoices.net.
October 6 features author/illustrator Rebekah Lowell, of Biddeford, sharing about her middle-grade novel in verse The Road to After about a young girl who discovers life and the soothing power of nature after being freed from her abusive father.
October 13, the discussion is centered around Deborah Gould, from Brunswick, and her novel Household, which is also centered around domestic abuse.
Liz Cutler, artist and founder/director of ArtWaves, MDI's only community arts center, leads the October 20 discussion.
The conversations will be facilitated by Sarah Firth, and joined by Patrisha McLean.
In Belfast, the Finding Our Voices exhibit continues at the University of Maine's Hutchinson Center through October 26. This exhibit includes Patrisha McLean's 43 photo portraits of survivors, aged 18 to 81 and including many Midcoast women as well as Governor Janet T. Mills. The exhibit also includes documentation of some of what the women transcended. Hours of the H. Allen and Sally Fernald Gallery are 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. The exhibit is sponsored by Camden National Bank.
The Scarborough Public Library is hosting a Survivor-Speaks panel discussion on how domestic violence affects the children on October 18, at 6:30 p.m., in addition to an exhibit of all 43 Finding Our Voices posters. This event is sponsored by Risbara Brothers, Gorham Savings Bank and Camden Dermatology and Mohs Surgery with offices in Scarborough and Rockport.
Camden Public Library and Scarborough Public Library are both distributing the Finding Our Voices booksmarks – an award-winning domestic abuse-awarness outreach that is scaled down versions of the posters – through the month of October.
Finding Our Voices is the grassroots survivor-powered no nonprofit breaking the silence, stigma and cycle of domestic abuse community by community across Maine. For more information, visit FindingOurVoices.net.
