Maine Currents Special 8/29/19: Part 2 of 2- Patrisha McLean’s “Finding Our Voices”

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Note: Maine Currents will return to our regular time slot – the 1st Thursday of each month at 10, in September.

PLEASE BE ADVISED: This program features women telling their stories of surviving domestic abuse. Some of the descriptions of abuse and violence are graphic.

According to the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence, here in Maine a domestic violence assault is reported to law enforcement roughly every 2 hours. And according to a 2018 report by the Maine Domestic Abuse Homicide Review Panel, for more than 10 years, almost half of the homicides in Maine were caused by domestic violence. 16 of the 37 people who were murdered in Maine from 2016 to 2017, were killed by a family member or intimate partner.

My guest on this program is Patrisha McLean. You may know her as an accomplished photographer– and you may also know parts of her personal story as a survivor of domestic violence, as they have played out in the media. Her abuser is a celebrity, so her story was shared far and wide. While that spotlight may have caused some of us to withdraw, Patrisha instead picked up her camera and a recorder and went out to help other women tell their stories on a website and traveling multimedia exhibition, called Finding Our Voices Today we pick up our conversation where it left off on the program that aired yesterday, and we open the phone lines and email to listeners.

The Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence website has resources, including confidential help lines, if you or someone you know would like to talk with someone about domestic abuse/violence. There are links to resources at www.findingourvoices.net as well. The Statewide Domestic Abuse Helpline is: 1-866-834-HELP Hearing Impaired: 1-800-437-1220 The Penobscot Nation’s Domestic & Sexual Violence Advocacy Center’s hotline number is (207) 631-4886

Catch the award-winning Maine Currents, independent local news, views and culture, on the 1st Thursday of every month, 10-11 a.m. on WERU-FM and streaming live at www.weru.org

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