October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and state and local community organizations are working to raise both awareness and funds to combat the problem.
The Arkansas Coalition Against Domestic Violence, in conjunction with the Garland County Domestic Violence Task Force, will sponsor "The Silent Witness Project" at The Warehouse, 301 E. Broadway St., during Gallery Walk from 5-9 p.m. today.
"It is life-size, plywood silhouettes (each) representing a victim murdered in a domestic violence situation," Susan Millerd, Task Force co-chair and Title IX coordinator at National Park College, told The Sentinel-Record.
"It is life-size, and on all the silhouette is a plaque that identifies who the person is, and where it occurred. It's very moving. It's an emotional experience to walk through the silhouettes," she said.
Each one is customized to represent child, female, male and wheelchair victims murdered in the state of Arkansas within the recent year, according to a news release.
"It's real stories. They are not fabricated in any sense. And they are, for the most part, local, or at least in Arkansas," Ashley Thompson, Task Force co-chair and vice president of The Greater Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce, told the newspaper.
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"The year before last, when we had it at National Park College, there were a couple of silhouettes that identified as Garland County. And so it really does bring it home and is not an art piece," she said. "It's not fictional, it is something that is to bring attention to the severity of it, and to make sure that people are aware that it is happening right here. And you don't have to consider this a bigger city, bigger state kind of problem."
The Silent Witness National Initiative began in 1990 to support an end to domestic violence through community-based exhibits, according to its website, starting with a small group of volunteers in Minnesota and growing into an international presence, with projects in all 50 states and 23 countries.
According to the Arkansas Coalition Against Domestic Violence website, the known and confirmed domestic violence homicides in Arkansas in 2020 totaled 55, of which 32 were women, 17 were men, and six were children with 26 involving intimate partners.
"One of the things that always shocks me is the number of children," Millerd said. "The Silent Witness project will bring the stories of these people and the families, you know, that are impacted by these deaths. And so we're very grateful to be able to bring this event to our community, because I think it really does hit you when you see these little children."
"If you've seen it once, you haven't seen it twice, because it's not the same stories going out each year they updated. So we like to bring it in for Domestic Violence Awareness Month, because it's pertinent to the time that we're trying to bring awareness, but it also changes and people need to see that it's an ongoing issue," Thompson said.
The Garland County Domestic Violence Task Force is also currently raising funds for a "Hotline Cling Project" aimed at placing the local domestic violence hotline number on clings, or removable signs, in local area businesses, bathrooms, and public areas in and around the county, so victims of domestic violence and their families can access the number to the emergency services from anywhere.
"What we're trying to do is make sure that the community is aware that there's a 24-hour hotline, a local hotline, a local number, for those who are experiencing domestic violence," Thompson said.
"Whether or not they need emergency shelter, will get decided over the phone. If they aren't looking for shelter, if they're looking for other resources -- therapy, legal services, advocacy, and other resources -- all of those are available," she said. "But the community hasn't been well aware of this. The victims are getting the services, they're finding the shelter, but the community hasn't made a big push to access the shelter, and to learn the hotline number."
Thompson said they are trying to get businesses involved in order to get the number put in the men's and women's restrooms and local businesses "so visitors and locals alike can access this hotline number. It's a safe place to go. It's an easy place to access."
Thompson noted that sometimes phone numbers on items such as business cards, brochures, or flyers "are not safe to take home, they're not safe to put in your purse or store on your phone. Abusers don't really like you to have domestic hotline numbers on you. But if you can get yourself to a restaurant or a public restroom, and you can memorize the number or know that you're in a safe place to make a call ... that's going to be helpful to get services to the victims and their families."
Thompson stressed that "they're not stickers, they are removable clings that can go on any glass or smooth surface. So as long as we get the OK from the business owners, then our task force will be going out and searching for businesses that will accept us to put this in there, either on the mirrors or on the stalls. Maybe even publicly on the business doors, if they'll let us ... wherever public places are going to let us put this hotline number. And it will be an easily accessed number."
At NPC "we're certainly aware that when people come back to school, they're changing their lives," Millerd said. "And I think sometimes change brings stress within families, within relationships and part of National Park College's active role in domestic violence is to make sure our students know that there is this wonderfully safe shelter that they can continue their classes online within the shelter and they don't have to drop out of school. I think there was a time when technology wasn't there that a lot of victims of domestic violence dropped out of school. Educating these victims is critical. And we do have to put some of the clings in the bathrooms on our campus."