More than 150 women testified against Larry Nassar, the former Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics physician who was ultimately sentenced to 60 years in prison for child pornography and 40 to 175 years in prison for child sexual abuse. Two-time Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman is one of those women.
After publicly recounting her experience during Nassar’s trial, she’s become a prominent activist for changing the stigma surrounding survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Her speech at the ESPY awards this year went viral, and she’s bringing her platform to Cleveland when she speaks at the National Council of Jewish Women/Cleveland’s opening meeting Sept. 26 at Landerhaven in Mayfield Heights.
The National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) is a grassroots organization of volunteers and advocates who turn progressive ideals into action. Inspired by Jewish values, NCJW strives for social justice by improving the quality of life for women, children, and families and by safeguarding individual rights and freedoms.
The theme for the opening meeting is “Be the Voice. See the Change,” The event consists of a luncheon, dessert, brief remarks by Raisman and her main presentation.
Since sharing her story of abuse, Raisman partnered with Darkness to Light (D2L), a nonprofit committed to empowering adults to prevent child sexual abuse.
“When I started speaking out, I noticed a concerning lack of education and awareness for the prevalence of child sexual abuse in our society and the tendency for some adults to not feel the responsibility for its prevention,” she told the Cleveland Jewish News.
Along with D2L, Raisman created the Flip the Switch campaign, a service offering child sexual abuse prevention training. The prevention education training called ‘Stewards of Children’ takes only two hours to complete, and is provided at no cost to participants.
This article appears in Aug 29 – Sep 4, 2018.