Survivor Leadership
If you are reading this blog, it is highly likely that you follow Alabaster Jar Project on social media. On our Facebook and Instagram, we share with you all the accomplishments of survivors in our community as well as ways to get involved in their recovery.
However, what you’ll never see on our social media are the names or faces of the women we serve. You might have noticed survivors being depicted from behind their head, and you might have noticed that we change the names of survivors who share a written testimony. Why can’t we reveal the identities of survivors, especially those currently living in our residential program?
We protect the anonymity of survivors in our community for a number of reasons:
Survivors who are currently at Grace House are escaping life-threatening situations. It is dangerous for their identity or location to be shared. Even mentioning who lives at Grace House can be dangerous.
Survivors at Grace House are often in crisis, meaning that this is the hardest time in their entire life. They deserve ample amounts of privacy and autonomy while they are working through this.
Survivors at Grace House have been deeply exploited. Using their identity for any purpose other than through their own will, on their terms, could be considered exploitative.
Imagine going through the hardest season of your life, and someone exposes your struggle for the world to see. Imagine how that could be hurtful, or even dangerous! We take the safety of survivors, especially those living with us at Grace House, extremely seriously. Instead of sharing any names, faces, or identifiable details of survivors whom we are serving, we do the following:
We share false names as placeholders for their true identity.
We depict survivors from the back or in a way that their face is not shown.
We may use stock images of women when sharing about survivors on social media.
We train all staff and volunteers in trauma-informed care, ensuring that they never share any pictures of survivor residents at Grace House.
By the time the survivor has reached Graduation and has left Grace House, it becomes their choice whether or not they want to share their testimony. This can be done in several different ways. Most often, they write a personal anonymous statement about their recovery and what has helped them reach independence. Sometimes survivors choose to share their story on camera. In this case, they are properly compensated for their time, and they have the option to still hide their identity, by either changing their name, or being depicted without showing their face.
Those of you who have supported us for a long time know how involved you can be in a survivor’s healing WITHOUT knowing who they are or what they look like. That’s not what matters most in their recovery. What matters most is the healing that takes place inside their heart.
