Ending Abuse Israel Project #56229

Self-Advocacy for Women & Teens with Disabilities

by Chimes Israel

Self-Advocacy for Women & Teens with Disabilities

Project Report | Feb 18, 2025
Addressing Abuse from Many Angles

By Pamela Azaria | International Resources Director

Girls in the Self-Advocacy & Empowerment Workshop

Chimes Israel's self-advocacy and empowerment program for women and girls has had 51 direct participants. They include 10 at our Enoch afterschool program for girls and young women and 41 women at our employment centers.

The project’s overall objective is to create a change in participant knowledge, ability, and attitude toward a better understanding of themselves, relationships, and sexuality, and the ability to protect themselves and/or seek help against harmful, abusive, violent, or exploitative relationships.

The qualitative results from our pre- and post workshop surveys proved that the group intervention led to positive and significant changes. There were marked changes in their sense of competence and attitudes regarding independence and relationships.

We have learned that the program is equally, if not more important for girls. While women with disabilities experience almost double the rate of sexual exploitation, violence, and psychological abuse than those without disabilities, nearly half of the abuse begins before the age of 15. We have been tirelessly fundraising to launch more sessions of our groundbreaking Self Advocacy & Empowerment program for girls/young women with disabilities in our after-school programs. We are now funded for one workshop in 2025. The Argaman Institute, Israel’s foremost expert in therapeutic and social responses to issues related to human sexuality, emotional states, trauma, crisis, and behavioral difficulties, will lead the workshop.

The workshop creates a safe, supportive space where girls with disabilities can find their voices and reclaim their power. The girls learn about body health, hygiene, and sexuality, as well as self-awareness and confidence through debunking beauty ideals and gender socialization. Most critically, the workshop focuses on self-awareness, consent, and abuse. They learn to recognize, avoid, and seek help against exploitation. The program is life-changing because it prepares them for adulthood as a woman with disabilities where they are not exactly privileged. The transformative program has proven to improve girl’s confidence, self-awareness, and ability to recognize and protect themselves from abusive situations.

We know that helping girls and women is not enough; the cultural environment that engenders abuse also has to change. We cannot change the world, but we learned that we can have a bigger influence over what happens within our center walls. This is significant, because this is where our service recipients spend most of their days. Therefore, we are launching a new program to promote organization-wide awareness of exploitation and trauma.

Addressing the fact that abuse is overlooked in institutional or service settings, we seek to lead the field in promoting an organizational trauma and exploitation-conscious culture. This Organization-wide Trauma and Exploitation Awareness project in collaboration with the Argaman Institute, will intervene at all levels of the organization: employees, service recipients, and families.

Our staff will be able to identify when our beneficiaries are subject to abuse and intervene with sensitivity. In addition, our beneficiaries and their families will have a deep understanding of the issue and have at their disposal, preventative tools to avoid exposure to these issues. To enable a response to the entire population receiving the service, the content will be accessible to all cognitive levels.

The Trauma and Exploitation Awareness will be included in the organization's quality policy, in a way that communicates the importance of our organization-wide focus on providing services with a sensitivity toward beneficiary exploitation and trauma.

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Oct 28, 2024
Expanding Self-Advocacy to Arab & Jewish Israelis

By Pamela Azaria | International Resources Manager

Women from the Arab Centers at Chimes Israel

The goal for this program for women with disabilities is to reduce possible situations of risk and harm; to help them identify and cope with risky situations; and for them to be aware of and able to utilize the assistance resources that suit their needs. The project discussions and activities cover the subjects of healthy and unhealthy relationships; early signs of harm and violence; empowerment through self-defense; and assistance and support resources in all matters related to violence, sexual harassment, and rape.

This year, there have been 41 direct participants: 15 in our Rishon LeZion,12 in our Taibe employment centers, and 14 women in our Kfar Saba employment center. Our workshop in Taibe is in an Arab community and it was our first time working with this population. We discovered that, even though it was a workshop for adult women, it was mandatory to involve the parents due to the sensitive and sexual nature of the program’s information. Once they accepted this and the workshop was well underway, the leaders suggested to the participating women that they should include their parents in the final meeting. They refused. They claimed that it was their intimate meeting, a safe space between them, and not for their parents. The fact they empowered themselves with the right to say “no,” understanding that the decision might not please others, tells us that they assimilated the entire concept of the program.

We are developing follow-up refresher programs for those who completed the project to sustain their knowledge, peer group, and confidence. Integrating the program’s concepts into their consciousness this way also adapts our organization’s DNA to one of self-advocacy and empowerment.

Also as a result of this program, we plan to set a nationwide standard practice for all disability service organizations in combating exploitation and trauma. The new program, “Organization-wide Awareness of Exploitation and Trauma,” its process, and tools will be presented to the Israel Standards Institute as a new “Quality Standards Mark.” The Quality Standards Mark will define the professional standards each organization must achieve to be certified as providing exploitation/trauma awareness and support services for people with disabilities.

After the Chimes employees receive the trauma program training, we are considering revamping the program to have the local employees act as the leaders of the program’s refresher and ongoing education on the subject of empowerment, abuse, and exploitation.

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Jul 1, 2024
Expanding our reach for a cultural change

By Pamela Azaria | International Resources Associate

Self-Advocacy for Girls with Disabilities

The goal of this project for girls and women with disabilities is to reduce possible situations of risk and harm; to help them identify and cope with risky situations; and for them to be aware of and able to utilize the assistance resources that suit their needs. The project discussions and activities cover the subjects of healthy and unhealthy relationships; early signs of harm and violence; empowerment through self-defense; and assistance and support resources in all matters related to violence, sexual harassment, and rape.

Past Workshops

For girls and young women, we held one workshop at our Enoch afterschool program. For women, we held one workshop each in our employment centers in Tel Aviv, Rosh HaAyin, Rishon LeZion,Taibe, and Kfar Saba.

An occurrence at the recent Taibe workshop confirmed that the participants had internalized the lesson on “empowerment,” We discovered that in the Arab community of Taibe, it was culturally mandatory to involve the parents due to the sensitive and sexual nature of the program’s information. Led by Arabs, we adapted the program to fit the needs of the Arab culture and assured the parents that they would not discuss culturally forbidden subjects. Once the workshop was well underway the leaders suggested that the participating women include their parents in the final meeting. They refused. They asserted it was their intimate meeting, a safe space between them, not for their parents. The fact they empowered themselves with the right to say “no,” understanding that the decision might not please others, tells us that they assimilated the entire program’s concept.

Our survey data and accounts from happenings in the workshops confirm that Chimes Israel’s empowerment programs have made a tremendous impact in helping women and girls with disabilities learn to protect themselves and seek help against harmful, abusive, violent, or exploitative relationships.

Expanding our Reach

Later this year, we will launch a 12-week program for men with disabilities. We will discuss issues for men with disabilities as well as healthy and unhealthy relationships; violence, sexual harassment, and rape. For this, we are rebuilding the syllabus, adapting content, and carefully choosing the location and pilot group.

We have also expanded the concept outside of our organization by hosting the “Not Just Women with Disabilities” webinar series with Maslan and Bizchut. Maslan is the Negev’s sexual assault and domestic violence support center. Bischut is Israel’s longest-running organization devoted to promoting the rights of people with disabilities.

We realized that to really change the system, we needed to change as an organization. With this intent, we developed a new program called: “Promoting Organization-wide Awareness of Exploitation and Trauma.” Within the program, we will formulate a clear organizational policy against exploitation and trauma of people with disabilities. We will equip all people attached to our organization with the necessary information and tools to identify and help address the problem. Educational intervention will be at all levels of the organizationfor employees, service recipients, and families. Objectives include: establishing an organization-wide professional discourse on the subject; furnishing employees with the skills to provide sensitive trauma and exploitation intervention and treatment; and providing the service recipients themselves and their families with tools to help them prevent exploitation and recover from trauma.

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