Celebrating survivors of domestic violence as they try to rebuild their lives, that’s what Being Brave 2020 is all about.
It’s a virtual gala this year, with musical performances to raise money for the Town Clock Community Development Corporation, which provides housing for survivors of domestic violence. Newark’s Ahmed Wallace, a musician, singer and composer, will be the featured performer, singing “A House Is Not a Home.” Why did he choose this?
“Some people stay in bad relationships because of their financial connections or because they have these materialistic things,” said Wallace, “but if you have all these things and you don’t have love, then you don’t have a home, you just have a house.”
Wallace said his reasons for taking part are very personal. “My father abused my mother for 14 years of her life and then left us,” he said. “She raised us as a single mother, a survivor of a domestic violence situation, and so it just motivated me, you know, what could I do?”
The pandemic is making a bad thing worse for those in abusive relationships, as families are confined to their homes. Wallace said school was a great escape for him during his youth. “As a child growing up in that type of situation,” he said, “I would want to stay at school till 6 and 7pm, as late as I could stay there, that’s how I ended up starting the gospel choir at Arts High School in Newark.”
The Childhood Domestic Violence Association cites that children of domestic violence are six times more likely to commit suicide, 50% more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol, 74% more likely to commit a violent crime and three times more likely to repeat the cycle of abuse in adulthood.