The No. 1 reason domestic violence victims can’t “just leave” is because they are being abused financially.
Jocelyn Ann Taylor knows this all too well. The mother of five was shot by her son’s father, after a series of domestic abuse encounters. He was the breadwinner.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, 1 in 4 American women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime. And in 99 percent of domestic violence cases, victims will also experience financial abuse, which means their abusers deny them access to money, ruin their credit by stealing their identity or harass them at work so they lose their jobs, according to the Center for Financial Security. Financial abuse is the No. 1 reason victims stay in or return to abusive relationships.
Author and founder of Hurt 2 Heal Joyce Reed and Georgia state Representative Erica Thomas gifted Taylor a day of pampering that included a Maserati-chauffeured journey to rejuvenation. They named it Project Bliss and the criteria for selection was for the recipient to be “a woman with integrity and dignity” and “a woman who has made it through an abusive relationship and is living to tell her story.”
Reed and Thomas both have testimonies, one is a domestic abuse survivor and the other a former foster child, respectively.
The primary goal of Project Bliss is “to begin the healing process with giving survivors a day to enjoy themselves and remind them that there is a life after the storm and you are now a survivor and a gift from God. And, you have a purpose.”
After the video, check out the photo gallery to see the total makeover.
