My lovely friend Rachel Meyrick has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to make a feature documentary called, What Doesn’t Kill You. It’s about helping women who have survived domestic violence in the USA tell their stories.

She originally made a short film for Bravewoman.org, during which she discovered some disturbing facts. For example, if a mother seeking custody of her children admits she has been the victim of domestic violence, judges in America are more likely to rule against her and give custody to the abusive father or his family.

She also describes what such a process is like for those women. Just imagine:

  • You have FINALLY managed to leave your partner (after, on average 5-7 attempts)
  • You have nowhere to live
  • You and your kids are living in a shelter
  • You have no money or job or friends (most likely due to the control of your abusive partner)
  • You are either a long way from your family, or afraid of what will happen to them if you involve them.
  • You are scared for your life
  • Now get yourself to court, looking sane, without a lawyer (because you have no money) and watch as the judge hands custody of your kids to the man that has abused you for years (you are more likely to win custody if you DO NOT admit you were abused). How can this possibly be happening in America today?

Obviously my social network is relatively small, but given the attention the “speaking up” wave has garnered in the technology/Web/UX community through the bravery of women like Whitney Hess, Sarah Parmenter, Leslie Jensen-Inman and Relly Annett-Baker speaking up, I think our community has an understanding and a willingness to help Rachel get her film made.

Rachel is a great filmmaker and editor, but she is still learning the Web and social media ropes. Please re-blog or re-tweet this and see if we can get her project fully-backed. If everyone who sees the tweet or read this backed the project, it would be funded in no time.

The film has a Tumblr blog here.

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