Comments

Teaching girls that they CAN defend themselves

I am interested in becoming a certified trainer for Just Yell Fire. I gained my Master's degree in Library Science last May with an emphasis in children's and youth services, and hope to find a job soon as a public librarian. With the amount of contact I will have in that field with young and teenage girls, as well as contacts with schools and other libraries, I would like to find out how to become involved and help promote your program.

I have been training in aikido as a self-defense art since June, and will be testing for my first rank soon. The more I learned in aikido, the more it made me aware of how girls and women in America are socialized about violence. Movies, television, and popular media seem to promote the belief that girls and women cannot win or escape in a situation where we are under attack by a man. Recognizing this made me interested in finding out what programs were already available to promote girls' and women's self-defense. I discovered Just Yell Fire by Googling "women's self-defense". I was thrilled to find that someone has begun a movement to counter that socialization early in women's lives, beginning with teaching the girls who are most at risk that they CAN defend themselves and escape an attacker, even if their attacker is much larger. I myself am only 5'1", and the techniques that eliminate an attacker's advantage of greater height are also especially applicable to me.

I live in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, and I would like any information available on training for certification for Just Yell Fire, either locally or in neighboring states if necessary. Many thanks to you, Dallas, and everyone else involved with Just Yell Fire for your caring and hard work.

I watched 'Just Yell Fire', and told my form tutor at school about it. It's now going to be shown to everyone in the school, and hopefully they will show their friends at other schools as well. I just wanted to say thank you to everyone involved in the program for creating it; I know several people who have been in similar situations to those shown on the video, and they appreciate so much that something is finally being done to raise awareness of it, so that others will not be so unfortunate.

It was such a pleasure having you visit and present at our school on Friday. Our students were very impressed but more importantly feel they received great information that can help protect themselves and their children. The extra DVD's are flying out of my office door as I shared information about our presentation at the all staff meeting on Monday. Please pass along our appreciation to Dallas and Catherine as they continue to get their very important message out, everywhere possible.

Hi, I am a Law Enforcement student in southern Minnesota. I would love to have information on how I can get a hold of this DVD for the schools in my area. Fabulous job. I have informed all of my online friends and my home town friends about your site for further information. I would like to take the DVD to the local schools. Thank you.

I work for a domestic violence rape crisis center in Bloomsburg PA. I watched a borrowed copy of your video entitled "Just Yell Fire" and thought our agency may want to incorporate your video into our prevention education programs for girls and their parents. Thank you for an extremely powerful video. The statistics are haunting. I plan to show your website to my two 13 year old nieces and encourage them to watch your video.

I just used some of your organization's history in my end of course sum up for my word processing and computer tech classes. My overall message this year has been to encourage my middle school aged students to use the tools being learned to find their voice and to be heard.

After I send this email out I plan on purchasing your book to use in future classes.

Thank you for being such a great role model to my students who are told by society and by education in general to sit down and be quiet far too often.

Sincerely,

Calvin

Matheson Junior High

I have just heard about the DVD from members of a city-wide committee that deals with domestic violence in the Jewish community. As we all know, date rape, abduction and other types of violence cross cultural, racial and religious lines -- they highly recommended this film for use in our schools.

Thank you so much --

I just finished watching the Just Yell Fire video. It actually upset me a little bit... I really could have used that when I was younger. I was sexually assaulted on a date in high school, and I never talked about it but it messed me up mentally for a long time. I really wish that I had been able to see this movie so that I could have defended myself, and now I can... Thank you so much for bringing this to me...

Everyone I work with is a high school girl or a young college-age young woman. The statistics on that show are totally alarming. I bet half of everyone I know has had something happen to them, or will someday. I know everyone thinks it won't happen to them.... But it does.

The greatest defence a person has is knowledge. This project will be a great learning tool to empower our kids. We need more projects like this.

I will be sharing this with my daughter and my nieces, as I have 9 - and they all could definately use this information. This world is full of predators looking to take advantage of our young innocent girls, I know, because I used to be one myself. If I would have had the knowledge ahead of time - things might have turned out very different for me. My hope is, that your DVD will help my girls to be aware of their strengths, and their surroundings, and be in control of their situation, should something happen to them - God forbid.

Thank you for making this important DVD, and supplying it to the public.

Good luck on your CNN Heroes nomination!!!! You deserve it.