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HearHer.org reveals the hidden survivors of domestic violence and their true stories

The blog that reveals the true stories of the beaten, abused, hushed and hidden survivors of domestic violence.

Today I’m not writing about green marketing, the environment or corporate sustainability campaigns. I want to share with you a new blog that paints sustainability in a completely different light:

Surviving hell, and living to tell about it.

The six authors at HearHer.org are all survivors of domestic violence. They volunteered as our inaugural writers, and they are truly pioneers.

These are women who have been beaten, abused, hushed and hidden the majority of their lives. Somehow they have mustered the courage to flee their abusers, often with children in tow, and they have found a home in Mesa, AZ, at SEEDs, a program of the National Advocacy and Training Network.

HearHer.org is the first-of-its-kind online podium where abused women can shed light on the raw and awful circumstances surrounding domestic violence and child abuse. Once you’ve read a couple of these unbelievable stories of horror at the hands of a spouse or partner, you can’t turn away. These women are real. What they need now more than ever is a friend and your support.

MonaLou Callery, the executive director and founder of NATN, came to us a few months back requesting ideas on ways to make the lives of these survivors more tangible and relevant to those of us who have never experienced the atrocity of domestic violence. Creating an online podium and establishing their own social media network seemed the natural solution.

You can share their journeys on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube

The project has been a godsend from day one. Everything fell together naturally and quickly. Unbelievably, the HearHer.org domain was available. If you’ve ever created a new campaign that is reliant on an obvious URL, you know how difficult it is to find one.

Luis Medina, our creative director, designed the logo and website, which received immediate and unanimous approval. Then we turned to Amanda Hawkins of Little Bird to build out the site as we created their social media channels.

Mentoring our Authors

One of the most interesting aspects of this project is in helping the HearHer.org authors become proficient as writers and creating a comfort level with using social media. Six remarkable communication professionals in Phoenix, each with their own unique expertise, volunteered to mentor our writers. Thank you to:

• Michelle Olson, President of Olson Communications
• Pam Haitt, Partner in Strategies Public Relations
• Robin Phillips, Web Managing Editor, National Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism
• Cam Williams, a social media professional for small business
• Greg Taylor, owner of GRT2Studios
• Aly Saxe, Managing Partner and Founder of Ubiquity Public Relations

I would also like to give a big shout out to my friend, Stephanie Holland of Holland + Holland Advertising in Birmingham, Bama, for her early noodling of the concept with me. Stephanie authors the She-conomy blog, and is an expert at marketing to women.

If you are a victim of domestic violence or abuse, or you know someone who is, share HearHer.org, or call the national domestic violence hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233).

If you have a question for one of the HearHer.org authors, feel free to ask in their comment section on the site.