Today we’d like to introduce you to Cynthia R. Bennett.
Hi Cynthia, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Hello, My name is Cynthia R. Bennett and I started the community based organization in June 2002 in my kitchen, providing encouragement letters to women every month for ten years. From 2002 to 2012, I distributed over 24,000 letters to women across ten states. We started as This Journey Ministries but changed the name in 2014 to JADASA, an acronym for Journey Against Domestic And Sexual Abuse; to signify we were on a journey against this epidemic, and that it would not be rectified overnight, but that it was a path we must take to fight against it. Today, we are a full-time 501 c 3 nonprofit, community-based organization assisting survivors and their families of abuse with direct services, such as crisis management, safety plans for escape, assistance with order of protections, victims’ compensation forms, group support sessions, and referrals to therapists. We are also very active in the community with our Annual Dignity Drive, which assists local domestic violence and homeless agencies and our clients with toiletries. We have an Annual Walk/Run Against Abuse, which is held every October for Domestic Violence Awareness Month; we host an Annual JADASA Joy Christmas Toys Outreach Program for the community we serve along with two schools, one in St. Louis City and one in St. Louis County and provide toys, clothing, bikes, scooters, and gift cards for free to children up to 16 years of age.
We created a streaming podcast JADASA Live on Facebook, YouTube, and Blogtalk Radio out of the COVID Pandemic as a tool to continue providing services to those quarantined with abusers. The first year, we had over 12,000 viewers who logged in and watched, asked questions, and were served through online chat, instant messaging, and texts.
JADASA has created collaborations with civic and business communities, providing workshops and resource materials to staff. We have collaborated and partnered with several school districts and higher educational learning institutes in the Greater Metropolitan St. Louis area with workshops for students and staff. We created a Domestic Violence/Sexual Violence Intervention and Prevention Curriculum for Kindergarten through twelfth grade.
JADASA also created a community-based workshop called DevelopHer/Him to introduce boys and girls ages 10-18 to the basics of mobile app development for entrepreneurship or insight into technical career fields; or an additional resource skill to combat financial abuse. JADASA has also created collaborations and partnerships with faith-based institutions and women’s events, providing a resource to lay people and leaders to assist members and those in the community who have disclosed abuse in their households or families. This created an opportunity for JADASA to present to the Missouri Coalition Against Domestic And Sexual Abuse Conference on how to advocate and assist faith-based institutions to advocates across Missouri.
JADASA has also spoken about abuse, prevention, and intervention to businesses and organizations via Zoom across the United States and Lagos, Nigeria.
It wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The road has been bumpy and hilly. The path from ‘Process to Purpose’ is and was painful. The obstacles and challenges were surmountable. I experienced a date rape in high school, an abusive relationship in my early years (which I successfully left), and the burial of six siblings and both parents in ten years. I share this because before I picked up a pen to write my book, A Healing Of Your Memories; as I was presenting on various platforms and invited to several speaking engagements, I LIVE IT; not only did I live it, I survived to tell it! I am still telling it.
Let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am the Founder/Executive Director of a 501(c) 3 community-based, anti-violence outreach organization serving women, girls, and their families who suffers from abuse and who are or may be living in abusive environments. I am a wife, mother, ordained evangelist, entrepreneur, and author. I have earned certificates in domestic and sexual abuse training, earned my MBA from Webster University, graduate certificate in Project Management from St. Louis University, and working on my Doctorate in Business & Nonprofit Management. My organization is a member of the Missouri Coalition of Domestic and Sexual Violence and the National Coalition of Domestic and Sexual Violence. I am a part of Woman of Achievement, Class of 2022. Alongside nonprofit volunteering, I have worked for over 30 years in Corporate America and taught Business Education in the local school districts. Within the past couple of years, I ventured out full-time with JADASA.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
My qualities are determination, compassion, and a winning attitude. I keep in the forefront of my mind Nelson Mandela’s quote, ‘Either I Win or Learn,’ which signifies progress in any situation. I am known for my determination to stick to a situation until there is a solution. My compassion is the empathy that I display and share because I truly was in an abuse victim’s shoes. My testimony to everyone suffering or who has gone through abuse is to know there is a ‘life after abuse.’ Their story does not end with the abuse; what happened to them does not define who they are; take back their power and define who they want to become. My creativity is to marry ‘the community to the cause’ with resources and events that raise awareness and bring to mind the ‘ah hah, I didn’t think about that’ moment. A reminder to everyone that abuse doesn’t have a certain look, background, or demographic. It can happen to anyone, and it does, but we are in this together the survivor, the supporter, the sponsor, and the community.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.jadasa.org
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/1jadasa
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cynthia-r-bennett-0946b631/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@jadasalive8759
