Fear & Discipline

April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month A few stats from the Crimes Against Children Research Center: -1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys is a victim of child sexual abuse -Self-report studies show that 20% of adult females and 5-10% of adult males recall a childhood sexual assault or sexual abuse incident -During a one-year period in the U.S., 16% of youth ages 14 to 17 had been sexually victimized (and 28% of them over a lifetime). -Children are most vulnerable to CSA between the ages of 7 and 13.   Our Mission for 2019: -Continued Speaking Engagements Workshops (Founders are Facilitator certified) -Finishing & Publishing our flagship book -Creating New Art Events -Creating Fundraisers & Sponsorship Programs -Create advertisement campaigns -Continued Speaking Engagements -Cross-Country Book Tour -Continuing our Monthly Music Event -Starting our podcast  -Expanding our coffee roasting operations  -Further cultivating our space as a community coffee house (the fresh roasted coffee is always free!)

It's the Year of the Pig! A New Year, a new beginning. A clean slate with a new opportunity. A second chance to do the things that enhance the quality of your life. According to Chinese astrology, the Pig symbolizes hard work, fortune, friendship, & the ability to find enjoyment in any aspect of life. There is a lot that we can learn from the Pig. In this fast pace world, it's so easy to let situations dictate your life. Changing your situation to enhance the quality of your life requires hard work, self-assessment, self-accountability, & most importantly, having the will to follow through no matter what. So how do you begin? -Set Some Goals . Setting goals can be overwhelming. I suggest, keep it simple & attainable, based on your current situation. Do a self-assessment of your daily routine. Is there something about your routine that you can change that can give you the time & space for self-care? This can be something simple as getting out of bed & facing the world. Or trying to carve out more time to do things that you want to do. What you are doing is assessing your behavioral patterns & restructuring yourself in order for you to thrive in the world. -Self-Accountability. Once you determine what you want to change, you just have to do it. Actualize those changes. Make those changes the highest priority for you no matter what. It is self-care in the highest sense. If you return back to old habits, don't feel guilty, just get back to your new routine until these changes become part of your habitual behavior. -Self-Assessment. How do these changes make you feel? Because it's a new routine, it will feel like hard work, however, there should be changes in your level of energy. If your routine is making you feel less energetic, perhaps you need scale back your goals or try out a different change in your routine. Remember, these goals are all about you, & what you can do for yourself in the moment to put you in a better place than before. What matters in your self-assessments is that your are always in a better place than you were before. Any goal that you set for yourself should always be toward a better place than you were before. Once you set your intention & begin your endeavor to change the quality of your life, your attitude & outlook on the world will change . You'll notice that every moment is a potential opportunity to change for the better, creating a better situation for yourself. By placing yourself in a better situation, you change the environment & people around. You can say that by practicing self-care to enhance the quality of your life, you are also enhancing the quality of life of the people around you. With that being said, may this year bring you good fortune, friendships, & enjoyment through the bounty of your goals! Cheers!

As a community, how do we end the stigma of child sexual abuse? It is a very hard topic to navigate given societal constructs & point of view & yet it is an epidemic that must be address. 90% of the offenders are people that children know. These offenders are people that have been sexual abused themselves as children. So how do we break this cycle? Most importantly, how much responsibility & accountability should a community assume to prevent child sexual abuse?