Ana will be featured in the production along with Norma Cruz, who is a key and active voice in Womens Rights in Guatemala. Through her efforts, convictions for crimes against women in Guatemala has risen. These include cases utilizing forensic science including DNA evidence (a first for crimes against women in the region)
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Takoma Park woman beaten with crucifix reaches out to help others
Domestic abuse victim finds healing in speaking out about her suffering
Whenever Ana Glendy Valdez feels like she can't go on, she pauses to remember the angels she knows are watching over her. Even for someone so young, Valdez, 24, knows she's lucky to be alive.
On Dec. 21, 2008, Valdez returned to her Takoma Park apartment to find her ex-boyfriend Carlos Ivan Ovalle, 33, waiting for her. Grabbing an 18-pound crucifix from the wall, Ovalle brutally beat Valdez in front of the couple's two young daughters before a neighbor called police. Minutes later, as Takoma Park Police Officer Angela Donovan began knocking on the door, Ovalle was holding a knife to Valdez' throat, ordering her to get rid of the officer.
Sensing something was wrong, Donovan refused to leave the door, but it wasn't until Ovalle again attacked Valdez that the couple's oldest daughter opened the front door and the officer rushed in, shooting Ovalle twice when he moved to cut Valdez' throat. Valdez herself was hit by a third shot when, falling to the floor, Ovalle shoved her into the line of fire.
Ovalle was found guilty of violent crimes and violating a protective order Valdez had already filed against him and sentenced to life imprisonment for his crimes in October 2009.
Now, after years of painstaking therapy, Valdez has learned to turn her traumatic experience into a valuable tool for other women suffering from abuse. A week after Ovalle's sentencing, Valdez participated in her first speaker's series with a county-funded family program.
"Actually helping other people has been my best therapy," she said. "My mother told me ‘Just close this part of your life and move on,' and I told her if I just closed this part of my life, it will just show me how weak I was. ... I couldn't do that."
She has since appeared to speak at a number of county and independently sponsored domestic violence abuse seminars to share her experience. She finds time for her activism while raising her two daughters, Ivana, now 6, and Glendy, 5, along with studying for her GED and working a full-time job.
Valdez also hopes to use a small startup grant she won from the Guatemalan Human Rights Commission this year to launch a website compiling advice and links to help centers for domestic violence victims in the next few months. She also wants to found a nonprofit devoted to the same goal.
Diana Dean, the Takoma Park Police Department's victim's rights assistant, helped Valdez and her two daughters take the first steps in the long road to recovery by encouraging them to enroll in the county's abused persons counseling programs.
"She was one of the toughest victims I've ever met," said Dean, who now considers Valdez to be a close friend. "She fought like hell; ... and in therapy, Ana would find that some of these other victims were calling her and asking for advice, because she had been through the legal aspects of dealing with abuse from the trial."
The unwillingness of many victims to speak about their experiences makes Valdez' commitment all the more important, said Hannah Sassoon, director of the county's Family Justice Center of Rockville, which offers a one-stop walk-in center for victims of domestic violence and other family-related trouble.
Many victims are reluctant to come forward and lack knowledgeable role models to connect with and give them the push they need to seek help, she said.
"It's very different from being hit by a stranger, this is somebody you have a relationship with, this is somebody that you love or loved at one point," she said, explaining that victims often drag out the process by giving their abusers "one more chance,'' and end up getting hurt more, or worse.
Any effort to keep the public informed about the dangers of domestic violence, especially Valdez' idea for a website, needs as much support as possible to spread the word, she said.
For the six month period from January through June 2010, county police reported a total of 1,065 domestic violence calls and made 275 arrests on the scene, according to the latest statistics reported to the Family Justice Center. Both were a decrease from the 1,105 reports and 302 arrests, which were reported from July to December 2009, Sassoon said, citing county police statistics.
Meanwhile, Valdez patiently awaits news from her sponsor regarding her website and continues in her fight to spread the word about domestic violence, calling on some of the many angels she has relied on in the past to fuel her dedication to the cause moving forward.
A list of angels is cited in one of the many poems she has written about her experience that she plans to put on her website to inspire others. She was careful to credit everyone who has helped her in the poem, titled "The Angels of My Life."
"And this one, ‘The Angel that gave me the gift to survive,' that is the police officer who saved my life," Valdez said, reading aloud from the poem. "Her name is Angela, but her family and I now call her Angel."
The Angels of my Life
By Ana Valdez
One dark night, when only
Faith and hope were with me,
The time felt like it was rushing me
It was a light and a breeze in my heart,
That told me that everything will be all right.
The Angel who called for me,
And two little Angels inside,
Gave me the strength
To be alive,
Another Angel was
Outside waiting for me,
And helped me to survive.
Now I understand.
How glad I am for this life,
When I see the road
And see
How the Angels
Brighten my life.
The Angel who gave me, the present of life,
The Angels that I give, the presents of life,
The Angel that gives me, the gift to survive.
Now I understand that I will never be alone,
And hear the whispers in my ear that tell me,
Look at all the Angels around your life,
And the purpose of still being alive.
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