For my Leadership-in-Action summer, I interned at Day One, a non-profit focused on providing clinical and legal support to survivors of domestic abuse, sexual assault, and human trafficking. As part of my internship, I underwent a 30-hour training to become a Helpline Advocate, volunteers who advocate for survivors in hospital settings. I also worked as a receptionist, greeting Day One clients and fielding phone calls from local hospitals and government organizations like DCYF (Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth, and Families).
My project contributed to the UNSDG goals of gender equality and good health. Indeed, as my training emphasized, gender and health are often inextricable from one another. When survivors of sexual violence and domestic abuse, disproportionately women of color, enter the medical or legal system, they are often faced with confusing avenues that further violate and harm them. Day One then works at this intersection, recognizing that supporting women both legally and interpersonally is vital to their mental and physical well-being. Whether it be accompanying a survivor as she files a restraining order against her abusive partner or creating a shelter plan for someone just admitted to the hospital, Day One helps people navigate confusing, impersonal, and often violent systems — ones ironically meant to dole out justice.
Most of the challenges I faced during my LiA were interpersonal. Given how much more often women are targeted by sexual violence, I was the only man among my training cohort. I sometimes felt like I was intruding on a space that was not mine, especially when the other volunteers awkwardly qualified their experiences with "Obviously not all men are like that" just because I was in the room. Moreover, as a 19-year old man, I often questioned how comforting or helpful I could be to women who were usually double my age. Worse, couldn't my presence make survivors feel endangered given the demographic of perpetrators of sexual violence? These were questions that I never got easy answers too, but as I spent more time at Day One, and connected with the people there over books and sushi restaurants, I realized that gender is not so uncrossable a demarcation. The volunteer lead, Alex, also told me — perhaps more to comfort than to tell the truth — that survivors usually welcomed male advocates, often just needing a person to talk to. Perhaps I was worrying about the wrong thing, centering myself instead of the people I was meant to help. If they didn't want me there, leaving was how I would help. My uncomfortability was not the point of the work I was doing.
Day One works within the system, helping people navigate it. From my time there, advocating for policy changes didn't seem central to its work. I do not know how big of an impact I will have, but I am still taking up shifts as a Helpline Advocate, and my time there has certainly shaped me. I was taught courage and humanity. To empathize with the horrible situations the people I was working with had to deal with, and to fight for their voices to be heard.