If you Google the name Wayneho Kam, you will discover that this young man, now a student at Duke University in North Carolina, has accomplished quite a few things in his young life. He, along with his twin brother, Waynekid, graduated their magnet high school in Raleigh, NC as co-valedictorians. The brothers were among 14 students chosen from over 100 to participate as interns in a cutting-edge program for outstanding high schoolers at Duke's Cancer Center four summers ago and also co-authored a science blog where topics included the environment. Involved as well with the Duke U. Red Cross group, Wayneho seems deeply committed to improving our world.
Toward that end, he has teamed up with the founder of the Invisible Youth Network, creating an initiative for child abuse prevention, "Students For The Children." The effort, in its early stages, hopes to establish groups on campuses and high schools across the country where students will take on the task of preventing child abuse in their communities. Given the scope of child abuse, this could mean that many more folks will become aware of and educated about abuse, preventing and recognizing it, ultimately mitigating its occurrence.
I learned about Wayneho's efforts when he contacted me about a collaboration via Twitter. If you visit the Invisible Youth Network site and click on the "Our Campaign" link, you can read more about the initiative and its collaborators.
My hat is off to you, Wayneho! Let's keep the prevention wagon rolling...

Check out our upcoming Boston-area Darkness To Light workshop dates! If you haven't already taken the award-winning Stewards Of Children CSA Prevention workshop for adults, join us. It could make a difference to a child you know.
A % of each new "Kisses From Dolce" book sold benefits the ATC Sisterhood D2L Workshop Fund.
Help us help kids!!

You can read more about "Kisses From Dolce" on Success Books' Twitwall. Thanks to Success Books for posting a great page! You can link to their Twitter page here.

Today, the day of the year with the most light, we walked from darkness to light in support of ATC Sisterhood's Darkness To Light Stewards Of Children CSA education and prevention workshops. Named the "Take 7 Steps" walk, it was our way of saluting D2L's 7 Steps To Protecting Our Children, the backbone of the Stewards program. We walked 7K (4.3 miles)...1K for each Step. The police escorted us as we made our way through Stoughton, MA, passing 4 schools, the Little League fields and the courthouse, stopping along the way at each K to post and acknowledge each Step of prevention. "Kisses From Dolce" fits perfectly with Step 3, Talk About It. For more information about bringing the workshop to your school, faith center, youth-serving organization or neighborhood, or about the book, contact me at KissesFromDolce@gmail.com. You can find Darkness To Light online at www.D2L.org.

Photos by Inez Springer (that's her, 4th pic down!)

Two years ago, on the longest day of the year, we literally walked from darkness to light in support of ATC Sisterhood's CSA (child sexual abuse) prevention efforts and our Darkness To Light Stewards Of Children workshops. It was an awesome, meaningful experience; we gathered before dawn on Boston's Freedom Trail at the site of our nation's first school house and walked to the colonial home of Paul Revere.
This year we will "Take 7 Steps" in support of D2L's "7 Steps To Protecting Our Children," the tenets of the Stewards Of Children workshops. We will walk in Stoughton, 7 K, one K for each step ("Kisses From Dolce" fits beautifully with Step 3: Talk About It).
Please join us on this meaningful occasion. Learn the 7 Steps, promote awareness and help make our community, and the world, safer for our children. You can read more about our efforts and the walk here.
See you Sunday!

(photo by Marilyn Rabinovitz)

The wonderful Hartford HeadStart event in April: Lena Rodriguez, President and CEO of Community Renewal Team, Susan Hamilton, Commissioner of DCF, and me. Lena and Susan were among many guests invited to read "Kisses From Dolce" to over 1300 children in 71 classrooms.

I wrote to the New York Times this week in response to John Banville's heartbreaking, and sobering, op-ed piece on child abuse in Ireland. The abuse, documented in a recently released 2600-page report, went on for years and was supported by a community system of secrets and denial. Those secrets resulted in, among other things, tremendous shame, both for the abused and for many in the surviving complicit community. Mine is letter # 2.