Frequently Asked Questions

Project Courage is funded by a grant from the 100 Women Strong Fund of the Community Foundation of Central Florida, Inc. Their grant is able to make this project possible, and their continued diverse support is a great resource for us.

Pine Castle was chosen because of the great sense of community that it encompasses. The people from the area are eager to work together for the purpose of ending domestic abuse in their community and creating a safer place for their families. Although other areas also had a sense of community, Pine Castle was ready to come to the table to work with us on this project and had the necessary social infrastructure to sustain the project.

We foresee that only positive effects can come from a project that brings education, trainings, events, programs and resources to one community in a comprehensive and adaptive manner. Our project is meant for all ages, all genders, all ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds. We hope to bring people together while we work for the mutual goal of making families, and by default the whole community, safer. We want to be able to become a part of Pine Castle and not the other way around. We respect the fact that the area is Historic and would only want to increment the healthiness and safety that such a well founded community deserves.

We will be continuously updating the Project Courage website, but we will also be putting up a number of social networking sites so that people can stay in touch, comment and become aware of events, programs and trainings. Once the project is up and going, we will work with community members in order to find out what methods would best suit them for getting updates and information about the project, be it news letters, emails, or the social networking sites.

This project has both prevention and intervention components. As the project progresses, we understand that the need for services will most likely increase as people become educated about what is domestic abuse and the fact that it is wrong in all cases. In addition, as people become more educated about the services that we and the county can offer, we know that the need for intervention will be great; however, we expect to see a decrease in abuse cases over time, which will allow us to focus more on the prevention components. These prevention components will teach people what healthy relationships look like and what is not acceptable behavior. As people learn and implement the healthy relationship strategies and stop accepting abusive behaviors as normal parts of relationships, we will see more and more individuals taking preventive measures so that intervention is not necessary.

Anyone can participate in the project! We are not limiting the number of people who can participate. We expect to be able to accommodate different languages and time schedules so that whoever wants to be a part of the project can be without any barriers.

No, this project is not only for survivors of abuse. It is for anyone and everyone who wants to see an end to abuse. We do have intervention portions of the programs, but we want everyone in the community to benefit from understanding that abuse is unacceptable anytime and by anyone.

If you believe that the family is the central unit of your community, and, as such, needs special attention, then you might want to be a part of this project. The project is meant to create a healthy and safe environment within homes and in the community so that people can grow physically, emotionally and spiritually. We believe that the project can bring much good to individuals, families, and communities through the education and trainings that it will provide. Awareness, knowledge and action are all essential to the successful and healthy growth of society.

Probably one of the most important reasons to become a part of this project, this movement, is because you probably know someone who has been affected by intimate abuse, child abuse, animal abuse or all of the above. If not you, then someone close to you is likely to have experienced the suffering, intimidation and fear that goes along with abuse. For this one reason, it is important to become a part of the project.

We want to end domestic abuse in a community and decrease the negative consequences that go along with having abuse in society. We want people to see that domestic abuse is a community problem and not a private problem. We want people to hold abusers accountable for their actions and the harm they do to children and families, instead of blaming and judging the survivors of the abuse. We know that if we can change the attitudes and perspective of people in regard to abuse, abusers and survivors, we can start to change the social learning that encourages, legitimizes and allows abusers to get away with physical, emotional, economic and sexual abuse of family members. We also know that if the family unit is healthy and happy, communities are more likely to be the same.