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This April 22 to 28 Tugboat recounted the journeys of seven survivors of domestic violence on the Surrey Women’s Centre’s Faces of Courage website to acknowledge National Victims of Crime Awareness Week (NVCAW).

Each day of the week-long campaign we posted the profile of a domestic violence survivor onto the Faces of Courage website, their stories accumulating as the week progressed. They were many voices with one message: “If I can escape domestic violence, so can you.”

In keeping with the NVCAW 2012 theme, “Moving Forward,” the stories tell how each woman got help and learned to move on with dignity.

Sonya Boyce, executive director of the Surrey Women’s Centre, told us the website gave the women a voice to share their stories. “Reading women’s words against such a beautiful backdrop I think made people look beyond them as victims to see the strong and courageous women they are,” she said.

The purpose was to generate awareness of domestic violence and give strength to those who are still going through it. Visitors don’t have to leave the main page to glimpse into each woman’s narrative.

The slide show format brings out the individual voices one by one and allows room to add more stories without detracting from the site’s minimal design.

The Milestones section takes visitors through B.C.’s legal system regarding domestic violence. An interactive timeline chronicling women’s rights in B.C. shows how far we‘ve come over the last century, and how far we still need to go.

 Visit http://www.surreywomencentre.ca/courage.