Activism & Raising Awareness
Alongside the Center’s ongoing programming, the Center employs a number of means of advocating for survivors. Demonstrations and marches are a grassroots method of addressing important incidents or social justice issues, as are activism and lobbying, community work and media campaigns. Through these methods we aim to increase knowledge, bolster legal protections for survivors, enhance just enforcement of sexual violence laws and ultimately, make Israel a safer place, where the basic human rights of women, men and children are better protected. For example, each year we organize with our sister feminist organizations Israel’s “Take Back The Night” march for the International Day to Eliminate Violence against Women (November 25th) as well International Women’s Day (March 8th).
The Center also participates in public campaigns focused on fighting against rape culture within governmental and social infrastructures. Using a variety of Israeli media including radio, television, newspapers and the internet, we transmit our message of social change regarding a range of issues surrounding sexual violence. Each year, Center staff are featured in dozens television appearances, radio interviews and newspaper articles. We are frequently called on to react to instances that make the headlines including high profile sexual assault cases, instances of gang rape, sexual harassment in the military and child abuse cases. We provide information, context, and awareness of sexual assault issues to the Israeli public. We also initiate editorials to attempt to change prevailing attitudes and public opinions on complex issues. Over the years we have greatly expanded our social media presence. The Center is constantly updating our very active Facebook page, which has over 11,300 followers. We use our Facebook page to keep our supporters abreast of new issues and public campaigns. Staff members also contribute content to various online forums in order to raise awareness and address matters regarding sexual assault.
Volunteers
Volunteer Trainings and Support
The Center is first and foremost a grassroots organization, with volunteers making up 94% of our manpower. It is our strong belief that we must heavily invest in the ongoing support and well-being of our volunteers. This is not only to ensure that they will continue their service to the Center. We recognize that our volunteers are an invaluable asset. Each volunteer creates a renewed sense of passion and devotion, reminding us of the importance of the Center’s work. In order to empower our volunteers, we make sure that all of our volunteers participate in an intensive training program that provides them with both a deeper understanding of the issues that survivors face as well as a personal connection with staff to help support them through the difficult work that they undertake. In order for our volunteers to begin their work feeling well prepared, informed and empowered we provide a very comprehensive educational component as well as extensive coaching and simulations as part of our mandatory volunteer training course. Importantly, this also gives staff members a chance to assess each volunteer’s skill set and to guide them to an appropriate placement. The trainings also have an in-depth therapeutic element in order to help the volunteers develop the emotional readiness to deal with survivors’ trauma, their own reactions to survivors’ stories as well as any trauma that the volunteers have themselves experienced. Throughout the course, our staff members work hard to build a lasting, personal connection with each volunteer and make sure that volunteers feel comfortable to turn to them with any issues that might arise, professional or personal, both during the course as well as afterwards. The Center offers various types of training courses, including courses for new volunteers as well as advanced training courses for veteran volunteers.
Another integral means of supporting our volunteers is our mandatory supervision programming. We know that inevitably volunteers will experience dilemmas, frustrations and challenges as a result of their work. We therefore have established a structure through which any issues, emotional or technical, can be addressed by staff in a productive, helpful manner. All of our supervisions are facilitated by trained professionals. The supervisions focus on improving skills, emotional processing, discussion of recurring or significant issues that have arisen and refreshing volunteers’ knowledge previously learned in the training course. They also present the opportunity for volunteers to process the secondary trauma that they experience as a result of their challenging work as well as give staff the chance to provide specialized trainings on specific issues such as suicide, eating disorders etc. It is of the utmost importance for us that these supervisions provide a supportive space for learning and development in which supervisors provide constructive feedback and guidance. The supervisions also serve as an ideal space to conduct team building exercises in order to strengthen the social cohesiveness of a particular volunteer unit.
Additionally, due to the taxing nature of our volunteers’ work, we feel it absolutely necessary to offer the option of individual counseling in addition to the ongoing group supervision. In these sessions, trained professionals create a personalized, therapeutic environment wherein a volunteer can feel comfortable to discuss personal issues which may or may not be directly related to the volunteer work. Many of our unit supervisors also offer one-on-one meetings either in person or via weekly telephone call sessions with their volunteers in order to check in and make sure that any issues are addressed in real-time. Center staff makes sure to reach out to volunteers after every accompaniment, hotline shift, etc.
We also make use of various enrichment programs as a means of bolstering our volunteers. We regularly facilitate lectures, seminars and workshops focused on deepening and expanding volunteers' knowledge on issues related to crisis assistance and further their understanding of the implications of trauma. These programs serve to further supplement volunteers’ knowledge with a diverse array of round table discussions, group analysis of cutting-edge research and scholarly articles as well as lectures by experts in the field. They also are a means of strengthening the social bond between volunteers as well as a means of showing volunteers that we value them and greatly appreciate the meaningful work that they do with its powerful impact on thousands of survivors.
Most volunteer opportunities at the Center require both spoken and written fluency in Hebrew. There are some opportunities for English speakers to get involved. Interested English speakers should please contact us at volunteers@ta1202.org.