FORT LAUDERDALE –– Patricia Minski has accomplished much in her lifetime. She is a wife, mother and grandmother. She has earned master’s degrees in social development and family therapy.

However, Minski said it was only last year when she finally took steps to fulfill the lifelong calling that would create a huge impact on the lives of women in her native Colombia and in South Florida.

“I knew that domestic violence was my calling,” she said. “One day, I turned 50 and I realized I was ready.”

Minski, a psychologist who has practiced family therapy for 10 years and now lives in Golden Beach, approached Women In Distress of Broward County, Inc. in early 2006. After completing the nonprofit organization’s core curriculum, she began volunteering on its crisis line, with its speaker bureau and at its shelters for women and their families who are fleeing from domestic violence.

Soon after, she was approached to join the Executive Council for Professionals Educating and Advocating Respect in Relationships, a new auxiliary for Women In Distress. She serves as PEARR’s Outreach and Education Chairperson and is currently working on PEARR’s book on the impact of domestic abuse on children by talking with survivors of domestic violence. PEARR is expecting to publish the book later in the year.

She said her work with Nancy Leve, Women In Distress’ director of volunteer services and PEARR adviser, was essential to her personal growth. “For the first time, I felt my talents were being used and greatly appreciated,” she explained.

Minski decided that those talents could also be put to good use in her homeland. So, she consulted Shelia McCann, the director of Women In Distress’ new Office of Social Change, and developed a workshop on domestic abuse that she could use in her hometown of Barranquilla, Colombia.

She described the community as very patriarchal, where women have fewer freedoms and opportunities for education and work than men.

Her sister in law, Diana Minski, who lives in Barranquilla, agreed.

“Machismo is the word in Spanish,” Diana said, trying to describe the society. “The man has the power. It’s a big culture-thing there; ‘The man is the king.’”

Diana is also a volunteer and she works with Sanar Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Barranquilla that provides professional and economic support, for child-cancer treatment and prevention. Sanar is the organization that Minski approached with her workshop idea.

Sanar was supportive.

So were Minski’s professional friends in Colombia, whom she tapped to help her create a Spanish-language film about domestic violence titled Ella, Un Objeto Por Amor.

“I called them and they said immediately, ‘I’ll do it,’” she recalled.
The short film was directed by movie producer Mauricio Cherkes. Minski is listed as producer.

Minski showed the film during her four-hour workshop at Sanar that was attended by a 25 women from Barranquilla’s underprivileged communities. She presented the workshop with her friend Nelly de Rodriguez, a sociologist from Bogotá, Colombia.

They gave the women the basics about domestic violence, including the definition of physical, psychological and sexual abuse, and asked if any of them had stories they wanted to share.

Eighteen of the 25 women reported being victims of violence in their homes. Some of the stories they shared were “atrocious,” Minski said. “What I did was uncover a need.”

That need was recognized by Sanar’s staff members, who contacted two nearby universities and arranged to have each one send an intern to its facilities to work with and further help the women who reported being abused. In addition, Sanar wants Minski to return for follow-up programming.

The impact of Minski’s workshop was also noticed by two other charitable organizations in Barranquilla that asked her to hold workshops for women at their facilities.

Minski is in the process of incorporating Fundacion Vientre Libre, the group she formed to produce Ella, Un Objeto Por Amor. She said the ultimate goal of her many projects is to ensure “equal rights for men and women.”

She added that she wants to raise consciousness about female oppression and create awareness that domestic violence is not OK.

“This is a cause that touches my heart deeply,” Minski said. “I feel like I have to give back.”

Minski added that she would love to see the realization of an enlightened future described by Noeleen Hayzer, executive director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), who said, “I believe we can abolish violence against women the way we have abolished slavery.”

To contact Patricia Minski, e-mail her at outreach@pearr.org. For further information about PEARR, contact Davidson Taylor, PEARR second vice president, Marketing and Public Relations, at press@pearr.org or visit http://www.pearr.org/.