Women Are Dreamers Too (WADT), a non-profit that provides business technical training for domestic violence survivors, has partnered with Perdue Farms to address the economic issues affecting women victims of domestic violence and their children, but most importantly as it relates to the afterschool math and science tutoring for the school-aged children of abused victims.
Perdue, through its Franklin P. and Arthur W. Perdue Foundation, has provided a $5,000 grant to support the afterschool program.
“The goal of the tuition-free afterschool math and science tutoring is two-fold,” said Cindy Williams, executive director of Women Are Dreamers Too. “It helps us to refocus the energy of the children away from domestic violence issues they face at home, and it helps us to project and propel the children towards academic excellence in order to gain acceptance into area colleges. Women Are Dreamers Too is very grateful that Perdue Farms in conjunction with the Perdue Foundation count the Hall County community worthy of this partnership.
“Domestic violence can make children less likely to succeed in school, more likely to suffer and commit violent crime, and more likely to experience health problems that can last throughout their lives,” said Williams. “The impact of domestic violence goes beyond the statistics, it impacts the overall community health directly or indirectly but most importantly the overall economic wherewithal of the entire community as a whole.”
Each year, an estimated 1.5 million women and 834,000 men are physically abused by their current or former intimate partner or spouse, according to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta. Additionally, one in four American women report that they are or have been physically abused by an intimate partner. In 2002, there were 61,355 occurrences of family violence in Georgia, and some 80 percent of the aggressors were male. In the U.S. nearly 5.3 million intimate partner victimizations occur each year among women, resulting in close to 2 million injuries annually.
“Women Are Dreamers Too is making a tremendous difference in the lives of women of domestic abuse and the children of Hall County. Afterschool programs like these are so valuable to the at-risk children they serve,” said Kim Nechay, executive director of the Perdue Foundation. “At Perdue, we are committed to giving back to the communities where our associates live and work, and we’re pleased to support their programs in a meaningful way.”
