Elliott's Donation Page
VILLAGE HEALTH WORKS
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END THE BACKLOG
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About END THE BACKLOG
About Village Health Works
End The Backlog is a charity expanded off of Joyful Heart. End The Backlog is addressing the half a million of backlogged rape kits in America.
Village Health Works mission is to "is to provide quality, compassionate health care in a dignified environment while also addressing the root causes of illness, poverty, violence, and neglect." They served more than 20,000 people in the past year. To fulfill their mission, they have created a campus in Kigutu that has a health care clinic, schools, gardens, a church, a teaching school, a sewing cooperative, a bakery, and community spaces. Village Health Works is extremely special because they built an amazing campus that benefits everyone in the community whilst teaching and fixing. As VHW continues to grow, they are almost done with a surgical hospital. Village Health Works is a blueprint for what they can begin to build in other third world countries. In Burundi, 65% of the population lives in poverty, many families are trapped in a cycle of poverty with poor health and little or no education. VHW "economic development programs address the cycle of poverty by empowering community members with skills and tools to start small businesses. Cooperatives such as sewing, baking, and basket weaving allow men and women to generate incomes while providing important services and products to the community." Village Health Works has also created an agriculture program to help with the large amount of malnourished people and to create a more stable economy. The agriculture program teaches the community members how to make and grow their own, safe food. 16,709 kilograms of food were disturbed at the clinic because of the agriculture program, 50 households created a successful garden because of this program and 16 food production cooperatives were supported. Education is one of the primary ways to improve the citizens of Burundi's lives. At Village Health Works, they immerse the community to improve the quality of education in the best way possible. VHW has a special education system because of their "student support services, increased opportunities for parent engagement, increased community access to learning materials, and strengthened teacher training".
Village Health Works explains more about their education program:
"The education program has made considerable progress in training, and currently supports a dedicated team of 33 teachers. In order to bring about sustainable, systemic change to education in Burundi, we will continue to train teachers, improve classroom curriculum and expand on existing academic enrichment programs while also improving our school infrastructure to provide the instructional hours that students need to excel. They served 93 girls in a girl empowerment program, 545 children in primary and elementary school. This is incredible considering that in Burundi only 19.6% of boys are in school and 16.5% of girls."
It is incredibly important to test the rape kits for many different reasons. One is the lack of policies and protocol in sexual assault cases. "Most jurisdictions do not have clear, written policies outlining the testing of rape kits. This results in decisions being made on a case-to-case basis, without any guidelines, and means that individual detectives may have discretion over whether to send a kit for analysis." It also depends on how the department treats sexual assault cases and if they prioritize it. Sex crimes units are under-resourced and under-staffed. This can lead to detectives’ inability to appropriately investigate every case and to the discarding of certain kinds of cases that they may not perceive as prosecutable. The second reason is the lack of training and understanding about sexual assault and its impact on survivors, sex offenders, and forensic DNA can all impact whether a kit is submitted for testing. "Lack of understanding of how trauma impacts memory and behavior. Trauma can lead survivors to present to law enforcement in a wide range of ways that may, to the untrained eye, seem as if the person’s story is not “credible.” This might include having trouble recalling details and acting in a way that those who do not understand trauma may think is not “typical” for a sexual assault survivor. This lack of knowledge often leads to a detective closing a case as “unfounded.”" The third reason is the lack of knowledge about the evidence rape kits provide.​ The fourth reason is "Lack of training about sex offenders and their criminal patterns. In order to make informed determinations about sexual assault cases, law enforcement professionals need to understand how sex offenders behave. Perpetrators of sexual assault use shame and fear to lead victims to believe that no one will believe them. Perpetrators may purposefully target vulnerable populations such as children, drug users, the homeless, non-English-speakers, and/or sex workers.​"
The fifth reason is the cost and resources that are needed to test rape kits. On average, it costs between $1,000 and $1,500 to test one rape kit. To test all of the rape kits in America, it would cost $12,000,000. In addition, public crime labs do not have the proper technology because of the advanced and the demand for DNA testing is growing. The sixth reason is that police stations do not have the proper equipment to test and transport rape kits. "Many also lack the staffing resources necessary to investigate or follow up on leads that arise from the rape kit testing." Another main reason is the lack of lab policies in public crime labs. "In years past, many labs had narrow submission policies, some of which prohibited the submission of rape kits for DNA testing in cases in which the identity of the perpetrator was known to the victim."
It is important to test every single kit, including kits linked to cases with known perpetrators. "In other jurisdictions, a lack of clear communication between crime labs and law enforcement agencies has led to misunderstandings about what types of kits can be submitted for testing."
Rape kits can identify the prepatrator and confirm the presence of a known suspect. It can affirm the survivor's account of the attack and discredit the suspect in court. When tested, rape kit evidence can identify an unknown assailant, link crimes together, and identify serial offenders. It can also confirm the presence of a known suspect, affirm the survivor's account of the attack, discredit the suspect, and exonerate the innocent. Testing rape kits also saves communities millions of dollars. In addition, it can help police identify serial offenders and free wrongly convicted suspects. To accomplish these things, however, rape kits must be tested. Currently in America, there are half a million rape kits sit in storage that have not been tested. Each kit is someone's story and when it is not tested it is a "lost opportunity to bring healing and justice to a survivor of sexual violence and safety to a community. Rape kit testing sends a message to survivors that they—and their cases—matter. It sends a message to perpetrators that they will be held accountable for their crimes. It also demonstrates a commitment to survivors to do everything possible to bring healing and justice."
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