When Paula fled the Middle East with her three sons in April of 1999, she escaped a brutally abusive marriage of 15 years. Frustrated at the absence of domestic violence resources available to herself and her children as abused Americans overseas, she founded an organization to help families in similar situations in foreign countries. Paula founded the organization while she and her children were themselves homeless and penniless, living in a domestic violence shelter outside of Portland, Oregon.
After Paula and her family were able to move from the shelter into modest transitional housing, she put her Web site, www.866uswomen.org, on-line and began aggressive outreach efforts to American communities overseas. Even though Paula was fighting her own battles to keep her American children in the United States, she continued to focus on her non-profit. Donations for the program slowly trickled in. She helped abuse victims via email and finally, by April 2001, she had raised enough seed money to start the international crisis line. Within a few months, the demand for services was greater than she could provide with the organization’s scarce financial support. At the end of 2002 she finally received funding from several foundations and was able to start making a real difference in the lives of abused American women and children suffering in foreign countries.
This year alone, Paula has helped abused American women and children in France, Italy, England, Ireland, Ethiopia, Dominican Republic, Finland, Iran, Chile, Holland, Jordan, Canada, Philippines, Mexico and Saudi Arabia. She founded the first international toll free domestic violence crisis line, 866-USWOMEN, in April 2001, and also provides her clients with relocation expenses, emergency funds for housing and childcare and payment of legal fees. Paula answers the international toll free domestic crisis line herself, and responds to all crisis emails personally.
Paula is unique in providing domestic violence services to a previously forgotten population estimated at 6 million American civilians and another 1/2 million military families overseas. Paula has provided a lifeline of hope where none existed before.
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