Athens, GA (January 25, 2007) — In Georgia, nearly 30 percent of all women face domestic violence. Grady College doctoral student Lenette Golding is doing her part to raise awareness of such facts and to empower women through communication efforts including class projects, news articles, a service-learning project, research and even a cell phone drive.”There are tremendous barriers women encounter when leaving troubled relationships,” Golding said. Her journey in working with domestic violence began last year when she was part of a University of Georgia team that received a grant which allowed them to spend five weeks in Kenya doing formative research for a radio entertainment-education program to promote safer sex and partner communication among Kenyan men and women.

Working with faculty and students from Kenya’s Daystar University, they collected data to assist in planning a radio series for Kikamba speakers geared towards young women in the Machakos district of Kenya. The focus of the programming included gender issues, partner communication, women’s empowerment, domestic violence and HIV prevention.

Once she returned to Athens, the Arizona native began a service-learning project with the goal of producing a similar edutainment radio program geared towards the area’s Latina population. “Women experiencing domestic violence often don’t have power or control over their relationships. Latinas more so because often it’s not easy for them to leave abusive relationships due to language barriers, lack of documentation and cultural upbringing where women strive to be good mothers and good wives no matter what,” Golding said.

As part of a service learning project, she coordinated a team of three Grady College students and four Department of Speech Communication students with the goal of producing three 10-minute Spanish-language shows focusing on gender issues, partner communication, women’s empowerment and domestic violence. The audio show has now been produced and Golding is in the process of getting it on community radio stations.

Golding learned of the issues that the Latina population experience as a result of domestic violence after getting involved with three Athens agencies including Project Safe, a local domestic violence shelter in Athens, Catholic Charities, a social service agency, and Oasis Católico Santa Rafaela, an organization that serves low-income families in the Athens area.

A conversation with Sister Margarita Martin, of Oasis Católico, gave Golding an idea for a side project. Martin told her about 911 phones, which are offered to women in domestic violence situations to give them a sense of power and security. The cell phones are not new, but are used, functional phones donated for emergency purposes.

Golding immediately latched onto the idea and began working on a story in Patricia Thomas’ health and medical journalism class to raise awareness about community events regarding domestic violence and the use of 911 phones. Her story was published on the The Red & Black’s front page last October. She also launched a cell phone donation drive at UGA in October to coincide with Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Golding asked students and faculty to donate unwanted cell phones, either with or without chargers and accessories, to a drop box housed outside the Grady College’s Drewry Room.

At the end of the month, she had collected 45 phones. Golding attributed the relatively low number of phones to a “lack of time and resources; otherwise on such a huge campus, I should have been able to obtain at least 200 phones.” The 45 phones were donated to Project Safe to directly assist their clientele.

After spending so much time immersed in and researching domestic violence issues, she has become very passionate about the subject. With the help of Sister Margarita, Golding is now working to publish a story about a Latina woman’s journey to freedom. “The Story of Hope” aims to encourage other Hispanic women to break free from their abusive relationships through the disclosure of Esperanza and her struggle to liberate herself from her abusive husband.

“Latinas might think they have no options, but that’s not true,” Golding said. She hopes through the publication of Esperanza’s story, she can create more awareness of domestic violence in the Athens community and give hope to other Latinas in similar situations.

Golding has a master’s degree in public health from Emory University and a research interest in the use of mass media to promote social change. Contact her at if you’re interesting in helping to fight domestic violence in the Athens area.

Golding’s project was funded in part by an IDEAS grant from UGA’s Office of the Vice President for Public Service and Outreach

Photograph by: Naureen Kamdar

This article was posted on Thursday, January 25th, 2007 at 3:17 pm and is filed under Uncategorized.