Small & Gutsy features Su Casa

01/28/25 • 60 min

Su Casa in Spanish simply means your home - which if I take a little poetic license, could mean this space is your home or the contraction you’re, you are home - let’s go with you are home... The concept of home is something many of us often take for granted! Home can mean we can breathe, let down our hair, and be ourselves, and in general, we are in charge of our own lives, decisions we make, etc..for many, though this doesn’t exist or feels completely unattainable, not because it isn’t, but because there are life-threatening circumstances that create an almost insurmountable barrier. I recently did a podcast for another organization that focuses on global preservation by sharing information about what is happening to our global ecosystems and the individuals and animals who are being negatively impacted by being displaced or for some, the threat of extinction. We as a society are experiencing a wake-up call; a wake-up call to pay attention to preserving and rebuilding our ecosystems and a wake-up call to the realization that our domestic environments can also be threatening and threaten, most often women and children.

Su Casa is a healing sanctuary where victims - I prefer the term, survivors, can find their voice, develop inner strength, and become self-directed agents of change in their own lives. Su Casa has been around for over 40 years and was founded in 1979 by Petra Medelez, a survivor, who out of her own home took crisis calls and housed individuals being threatened and their children. Petra’s vision was to fill her community with peaceful homes. In order to truly realize her vision, Su Casa expanded its services to include not only immediate shelter from danger but also case management and counseling for residents and for survivors still living with their abuser or batterer, shelter-based certified childhood education, community awareness training, and transitional housing.

Su Casa continually strives to be present and relevant to the folks who are in need and therefore has enhanced their programs to include the growing number of Asian and Pacific Islanders. The value placed on empowerment and cultural competence drives the agency’s ever-expanding range of services that are survivor-centered. These services are practical, therapeutic, and educational.

Su Casa is also forward-thinking: they realized that 30 days may not be enough for women to be empowered enough to put their lives back together so more than 25 years ago, in 1996, transitional shelter was developed and is still being offered. The extended time enables families to bridge the gap between crisis and independent living. What I particularly like is Su Casa’s commitment to offering support wherever a woman is along her journey to safety; if she is not ready to leave, Su Casa is there to provide counseling and support and is available whenever she might be.

Su Casa’s Mission is to empower individuals and families to live free from domestic abuse and build partnerships with communities to end domestic violence.

Our wake-up call is to pay attention to those who may be asking for help and to connect them to resources like Su Casa

Website: www.sucasadv.org

Su Casa’s Mission is to empower individuals and families to live free from domestic abuse and build partnerships with communities to end domestic violence.

Our wake-up call is to pay attention to those who may be asking for help and to connect them to resources like Su Casa

Website: www.sucasadv.org

Previous Episode

Small & Gutsy Features Girls Matter

What does the phrase, “education should be a right, not a privilege” mean to you? If you believe that access to education is not a privilege, but a right as is the human rights law guarantees, then, why are 61 million children not in school, and most of them girls? Educating children no matter where they are is one of the biggest factors toward ending extreme poverty.

Education is not a privilege. It is, in fact, a human right. Education as a human right means: the right to education is legally guaranteed for all, without any discrimination; simply, there is an obligation to protect, respect, and fulfill the right to education.

Just to share some background: International human rights law guarantees this right. The Universal Declaration on Human Rights was adopted in 1948, in Article 26: 'everyone has the right to education'.

Since then, the right to education has been widely recognized and developed by a number of international normative instruments elaborated by the United Nations, including the UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education (1960, CADE), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966, CESCR), and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989, CRC). The right to education has also been reaffirmed in other treaties covering specific groups (women and girls, persons with disabilities, migrants, refugees, Indigenous Peoples, etc.) and contexts (education during armed conflicts). It has also been incorporated into various regional treaties and enshrined as a right in the vast majority of national constitutions.

What I find so interesting is that, there are laws to protect the right to education although, we are often globally failing to fulfill this right, but there are no laws to protect the kind of education offered. In some cases, as in the U.S. there was an attempt in 2001 with the No Child Left Behind Act, signed into federal law in 2002, aimed at improving primary and secondary education which in many cases reduced rich curricula into rote standards where schools were evaluated. This changed slightly in 2015 where states had more leeway in determining their evaluative criteria, but it certainly didn’t address the issue of quality. There still remains a huge divide in the US with the quality of education.

We know girls suffer more statistically in terms of their access to learning that aids in their potential to both better themselves and their communities. I have always believed that it is far better to have an educated society as it creates good competition and offers the likelihood that individuals will be self-sustaining and will then improve the larger collective.

Girls DO MATTER and that became the charge of an incredible organization, Girls Matter as well as a friendship between the three Founders Melissa Deally, Malcolm Trevena and Megin Alverez that brought that dream to reality in 2017.

Girls Matter, celebrates girls by increasing their access which includes financial support to high school and post secondary education in developing countries; their vision is to support the education of girls in these countries which will in turn, increase the respect, visibility, and equality for girls in their communities.

Their 3 key program areas:

Educate girls to complete high school. In select cases, consider educating girls to complete University.
Support girls to attend classes all year long, by providing menstrual pads (currently they regularly miss 1 week of classes per month without this support).
Through education, reduce the number of teenage marriages & teenage Moms

A child born to a literate mother is 50% more likely to survive past the age of five.

Educated mothers are more than twice as likely to send their children to school, ensuring that her own girls are educated, creating a positive ripple effect for generations to come

A girl with an extra year of education can earn 20% more as an adult.

Educating Girls Will Break the Poverty Cycle!

As a recipient, Evelyn Kawola who graduated from fashion & design school shared:

“Your support has pushed me to another level, I can see my future is going to be good. Girls Matter has really changed my life, taking me from being ...

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Small & Gutsy features Piece by Piece

Mosaics are defined as a picture or pattern produced by arranging together small colored pieces of hard material, such as stone, tile, or glass, resulting in the creation of something often ornate and beautiful. Sometimes, mosaics tell the story of what was, what is, or what can be.... Each mosaic is uniquely different and yet shares a common history - simply created from something else. As I was putting together this podcast episode, I couldn’t help but think about our lives that resemble mosaics in that we set out to create a plan or pattern that is predictable, or so we’d like to think, like a ceramic, glass or stone object, when in actuality, it can often be quite different. Sometimes our life plan is shattered, and it takes strength, energy, and determination to keep moving forward to put the pieces back together to form a new life plan; each time we experience this manifesting into a new life plan, we build our resilience and become perhaps more strategic or smarter in putting pieces together, and sometimes, the circumstances make it harder than we could ever have anticipated... such circumstances are poverty and homelessness.

Piece by Piece is an employment-related social enterprise designed to support individuals who have experienced homelessness or economic insecurity. Participants create mosaic art, as well as small-scale housewares and large commissioned pieces, and by doing that, earn income and master soft skills while beautifying Los Angeles; one of their mantras is: Recycled Art for a New Cycle of Life.

Please check out their website: www.piecebypiece.org

Their new address is:

6417 South Main Street, Los Angeles, CA. 90003