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1. What is your essential question and why? What is your best answer and why?
My essential question is, " What is the best way a domestic violence organization can help a person
escape an abusive relationship." Well it was a long process to finding a EQ that I could work with.
I wanted my essential question to include all victims meaning men and women and about
helping the victims and the public community in general. The problem with that is it was too broad and
I needed to narrow it down. So I focused on helping victims escaping a abusive relationship. My best
answer is, work with educators to teach 7-12 grade curriculum designed to educate students about
domestic violence. Why? Because teaching teens early can prevent them from being in an abusive
relationship in the future. With knowledge comes power.
2. What process did you take to arrive at this answer?
Well i knew i wanted to work with educating people in general about domestic violence until i did my
presentation for freshman about domestic violence. A lot of students only knew the basics of DV, for
example some students didn't know how to define a healthy relationship or some people didn't know
what there are more situations that fall into domestic violence. Then my mentor Marina Wood told me
that educating people is the best thing a domestic violence organization can do for everybody because
Just getting to word out in public may help a victim come forward or prevent an abusive situation. Also
going and attending some events with her made me realized that teaching teens about DV before it could happen is every essential. I wanted to work with teens because their are at the most risk for dating
violence and at risk or domestic violence in their future.
3. What problem did you face? How did you resolve them?
Finding time to mentor is one of my major problem because i had to find a day where i could fit my father and mine schedule so it could work. I ended up only volunteering on Thursday because it when my father
has a day off and its the only day I could volunteer on. Another problem is finding the right topic for my
senior topic because all summer i was stressing out, nobody was take me in to do mentor ship with them.
I wanted to go into the medical field but unfortunately nobody wanted to accept me as their volunteer. I
I went through physical therapy, dentistry and medical assistance. Then i wanted to do something with
homelessness but the only place that would accept me was in Ontario and Los Angeles, transportation
was my only problem with that. So i was at a standstill but i figure out from my past failures that i wanted
help people. Purther suggested domestic violence and then it just sort of clicked for me because i
consider myself a feminist, i knew people dealing with this situation and there is an organization in my city. From there everything fell into place.
4.What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?
Coming into my topic I only knew the basics and the general idea of domestic violence. It was until the
first day at House of Ruth that Marina Wood ( current mentor) gave me this book called, " A Teens
Guide to Breaking Free of an abusive relationship" by Barrie Levy. It was honestly the best book about
my topic because it put it in a perspective where everyone could understand it and also after reading this
book i felt uneducated about domestic violence because there were so many thing that i didn't know
before. It also started to give me idea o what i want for foe EQ and it helped me come u with my best
answer. Another great source was, " Domestic Violence Survival Guide" by Clif Mariani. It gave some
insight for how domestic violence victim should react in and out of an abusive situation. It helped me
come up with my 1st answer which was assisting victim with safe escape during the legal process.