NEW YORK—The Ms. Foundation for Women is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a $3 million gift from the NoVo Foundation in the area of child sexual abuse prevention. Over the course of the next three years, the Ms. Foundation will aim to shift public understanding of child sexual abuse using a social justice, community-based approach, tackling the root causes of abuse, and promoting systemic change.

Child sexual abuse is a silent and urgent epidemic, which devastates the lives of millions of children around the world. No country, culture, race, class or religion is immune. With less than 10 percent of cases reported to authorities, the full magnitude is hidden from view; conservative estimates count one in three girls and one in seven boys as victims. The personal and social impacts of abuse run deep and our inability as a society to stem the tide removes safety at its core, with profound consequences for creating healthy communities in the U.S. and worldwide.

The NoVo Foundation and Ms. Foundation for Women Partnership
The ultimate aim of the NoVo Foundation and the Ms. Foundation in this partnership is to prevent child sexual abuse. The NoVo Foundation is committed to a transformation in global society from a culture of domination and exploitation to partnership and collaboration, empowering women and girls as primary agents of change. The Ms. Foundation, a social justice foundation, has a strong history of grantmaking in this area and a visionary approach to preventing child sexual abuse, which seeks to address the root causes of the problem including harmful gender norms, which allow and encourage abuses of women and children.

NoVo’s unprecedented support for child sexual abuse prevention marks a tremendous shift in the field of philanthropy, making child sexual abuse visible and prevention possible. With the NoVo Foundation’s support, the Ms. Foundation will facilitate the building of a multi-layered and multi-cultural movement across the U.S. guided by public understanding that:

§ Adults in the family and the community must take responsibility for child sexual abuse prevention, not the child.
§ The vast majority of children are sexually abused by those closest to them rather than by strangers.
§ Child sexual abuse is closely related to a host of other social issues and must be addressed holistically at all levels.

“The Ms. Foundation is grateful for this truly significant gift from the NoVo Foundation, which will enable us to build a social justice, community-based approach to child sexual abuse prevention,” says Patricia Eng, Vice President of Program at the Ms. Foundation for Women. “Tackling layered causes and offering family members, communities and policymakers ways to take responsibility for promoting a healthy, abuse-free culture is essential to ending the pernicious cycle of abuse and goes a long way towards addressing an interconnected web of intractable social issues.”

The NoVo Foundation and the Ms. Foundation share the belief that ending child sexual abuse and creating a world in which every child can grow up in safety and with dignity, will allow all of us to fully participate in the transformation we seek in the world..

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About the Ms. Foundation for Women
The Ms. Foundation for Women, a social justice foundation, delivers strategic grants, capacity-building and leadership development to over 150 grassroots and national advocacy organizations throughout the U.S. Ms. Foundation support enables groups to create connections across issues, constituencies and policymaking levels to strengthen social movements and ignite change on behalf of women, families and communities. Since its founding in 1973, the Foundation has granted more than $50 million to organizations in rural and urban areas nationwide. www.ms.foundation.org

 

For More Information, Contact:
Irene Schneeweis, Communications Manager
(212) 709-4418; ischneeweis@ms.foundation.org