Cornwall Standard Freeholder

12 September 2008

As you are aware there has been a lot of planning and work done on a number of projects by Prevaction and others. There is also a lot of talk by several community leaders as to what would be beneficial for survivors. It is not that we are not helped and indeed we are grateful for these efforts, but what we as survivors would like is to be asked what it is that we need and be intimately involved in its planning and execution.

What we need now is a place for survivors, run by survivors. While institutions and service providers, including therapists, endeavour to help us, and no doubt some of us have been helped by the counselling program, much more work can be done by survivors ourselves.

For years now a steering committee of survivors, led by myself, have been asking for recognition for having designed and proposed a safe house, a monument and self-sustaining horticultural centre, and have written a manifesto of survivors' rights through the many efforts of the Alliance of Advocates for Survivors.

I think it is time for the media to acknowledge us as a group, to interview us, to hear the truth of what we have to say, and to report on the dreams we have for our city and especially for the abused, the poor and the neglected, who need help most.