I wish every child who has witnessed domestic violence in their homes could hear this.

“It is not your fault.”

I wish every woman who has experienced domestic violence in their homes could hear this.

“It is not your fault.”

The most important thing I have ever learned from my fifty hours of training to become a volunteer helping those who had been through domestic violence and sexual assault was this:

It is not their fault.

How is it that when we hear of someone that is being beaten in their home, our automatic response and question is, “Well, than why didn’t she just leave him?” or “It is her fault for staying.”

How can it be that the natural response is putting the blame on the person that is being abused rather than questioning the abuser. The questions should be, “How is it that this person thinks they can beat up someone they say they love? How is it that they think violence is okay?”

In order for this violence to change, we need to change our mindset from blaming the victim that is going through the violence, and start putting the blame on the abuser. We need to stop blaming the victims that are going through the domestic violence. There is only one person to blame in this situation: the person that is being violent.

The Makers of Memories Foundation is a foundation aimed at ending domestic violence and helping those children who have witnessed or experienced violence in their homes.

To end domestic violence entirely sounds like a big goal. Maybe you even think it sounds far fetched. To help all of the children who have experienced domestic violence also sounds like a big feat to accomplish as well.

But history has showed us that anything is possible. Many people doubted that slaves would ever be free in the Civil War, many people doubted that anything positive or that anything would change from the Civil Rights Movement.

But those doubts were wrong and history was changed forever. The people who kept trying to change the world for the better ignored those doubts and persevered. Society was changed for the better.

Now it is our time to change the nation and to end domestic violence.

Let us not doubt that ending domestic violence is impossible. Let us not doubt that the children that have seen the worst sights in front of their eyes can still have a bright future, full of love and free of violence. Let us not doubt those that are being abused, but rather empower them.

To live a childhood free of witnessing violence in the home should not be a privilege, it should be a right.

Laura Sandall