Call or write your US Representatives TODAY, April 23rd, to support PATHWAYS in the next Congressional funding bill related to COVID.
Now more than ever, with domestic violence on the rise, your VOICE needs to be heard. Tell the US Congress to give funding to PATHWAYS!
Update on April 26:
A date has not yet been set for voting on the next bill yet, so you can still contact your representatives in the United States Senate and House of Representatives and encourage them to support funding for the PATHWAYS hotline!
We are reaching out as we have exciting news regarding the future of Pathways, and a significant need for support from FAWCO.
The National Hotline Consortium, a group of leading national victim service and crisis intervention hotlines, has just submitted a letter to Congress requesting that operational support for the victim services we provide be included in the upcoming COVID IV stimulus package; Pathways is one of the 10 organizations requesting $10 million, which would be divided evenly.
The attached letter (same letter, one for the House, one for the Senate) details the need and the increased demands and challenges the different organizations involved are facing; Pathways' section reads:
Pathways To Safety International is experiencing increasingly desperate communications from American victims of gender based violence abroad. These victims are unable to leave their homes, and, if they are, are unable to return to the USA for safety. Gender based violence agencies and shelters abroad are overwhelmed and do not have the capacity to serve their own citizens never mind foreign nationals as domestic violence increases globally. Consequently, American victims trapped abroad are experiencing ever increasing violence. The need to continue to provide and increase Pathways’ global services to the millions of Americans living, traveling and now stuck abroad is critical.
Over the past several months, Pathways has continued to provide limited services via email to Americans abroad, but we have had difficulty securing substantial funding to sustain our services. We have recently developed a partnership with a much larger nonprofit which could help us to scale up services quickly should we be awarded funds from this stimulus package.
The need is great and we would sincerely appreciate the opportunity to share this information and the following sample message for FAWCO members to reach out to their Senators and Representatives on behalf of this important cause, requesting their support for the essential services the ten hotlines provide.
WHAT YOU CAN DO: Call with this message or reach out by email, forwarding the attached letters as well.
“Hello. My name is [your name], and I am a constituent [calling/emailing] from [your location and, if applicable, your program]. COVID-19 disproportionately impacts victims and survivors of domestic and sexual violence, and Congress must act to support them and address their needs. This includes providing more funding for domestic violence hotlines, which are inundated with increased demands at this time; collectively the ten hotlines making up the National Hotline Consortium employ hundreds of mental health, crisis intervention and legal professionals and provide critical and timely support and resources to hundreds of thousands of people each month. Due to social distancing directives and shelter-in-place orders, victims have lost most of their person-to-person support; in many cases, these hotlines are the sole resource that people have in this time of crisis. We’re counting on you to protect victims and survivors by ensuring that these hotlines have the funding they need to increase services to meet this demand.”
You can find your home states' senators and representative's contact information at the following sites:
This is a time-sensitive issue; the current stimulus package 3.5 looks to be finalized within the next 24 hrs, and this one will likely be addressed soon after.For more information on Pathways to Safety see their website (http://www.
pathwaystosafety.org) or contact