Breaking the cycle of intergenerational trauma in Madagascar

Omena seeks to dismantle generational trauma caused by emotional abuse. According to UNICEF, in 2019, 80% of children in Madagascar experienced emotional abuse. Almost 10 million children in Madagascar, the next generation in a country of 29M, have experienced emotional abuse, as did 1B children globally in '22 alone. 

Belittlement, control, and manipulation are fundamental to emotional abuse, insidiously hiding its nature from its recipient — particularly in the case of children, who blame themselves. Majority of victims and perpetrators often don’t recognize abuse as such; thus they accept and/or perpetrate future abuse. The severity ranges from mild to torturous; receipt of either can rewire the brain, causing myriad deleterious physiological effects causing the body and mind to break down alarmingly. Instances of emotional abuse lead to youth being unable to establish healthy relationships in their families or among their peers, declines in mental health and cognitive function, lower self-esteem, and ultimately generational trauma.  

Emotional abuse is a systemic problem that undermines basic human rights, public health, and our economy by degrading our human capital. It is an intergenerational problem that is exacerbated by poverty. Omena takes the stance that emotional abuse is rooted in relational power imbalances that reflect racist, colonialist, colorist, and misogynistic dynamics that have persisted across geographies and generations. As long as abusers operate from these biases, abusive dynamics will persist. 

Historically, colonization has informed the functioning of Madagascar’s educational, religious, healthcare, and financial institutions, with deeply racist ideals of how the nation should look and operate as its vicious undercurrent. These institutions breed emotional abuse cycles that produce people - disproportionately those who are racially and ethnically minoritized - who cannot holistically thrive. Bearing this in mind, Omena works to align both its content and its methodologies with decolonial teaching and organizing traditions from across the world. We work for a future in which those we serve courageously disrupt cycles of abuse, actively tend to their emotional health, and seek out communities that nurture their full potential. In this future, countless more people will feel empowered to pursue their highest aspirations, in turn generating the economic growth and innovation necessary to unravel the persisting inequities between majority-white nations and the global majority.

Omena is working to break the cycle of emotional abuse within families and communities and promote healthy relationships through preventive, evidence-based social emotional education, community support, and training. 

Concretly, Omena trains young people (ages 18-25) to become Community Educators who then run education sessions on emotional abuse in schools to students (ages 6-18). To complete this, Omena works within four phases to complete its objective to educate for the purpose of invention: 

1) In phase one, the project education component begins with a 3-day training session for Community Educators who learn the mission and model for the Omena program and how to recognize signs and psychological outcomes of emotional abuse. This training also teaches these educators resources on how to use the appropriate content and conversation to effectively facilitate Omena teaching programs in their schools, community organizations, and homes. 

2) Within phase two, participants take part in a “Community of Practice” every weekend for 6 months. Each cohort of Community Educators is provided additional tools and support to continue their healing journey while in their homes, schools, different relationships, or work environments. This community is for them to safely share occurrences of abuse, learn from one another and support others with mental and emotional health. This ongoing group creates a sense of connectedness and community among participants, and models how to hold space for vulnerable and potentially difficult conversations, which participants will then recreate in the larger community. 

3) Next, in phase three, a graduation ceremony to epitomize progress is held for those who completed the training and community of practice. After the ceremony, Community Educators begin to provide our School Social-Emotional Learning curriculum (SEL) to children and youth (ages 6-12 and 13-18) on emotional literacy and on how to build healthy relationships. Our SEL curriculum has been designed in collaboration with the Institute of Social Emotional Learning, the One Love Foundation, and Educate2Empower publishing. This program uses books, videos, workshops, and conversations as tools to accomplish session goals. The materials have been translated and made culturally appropriate for the Malagasy population. These sessions take place during the school year. 

4) Finally, in phase four, the program further builds our movement through ongoing community awareness and education around emotional abuse at every opportunity. In person, our ambassadors will continue amplifying our cause by participating in awareness events throughout the year, which are essential to get our message out in the community. Online, our ambassadors build a movement on social media by sharing our informative content, and our campaign, and by highlighting their stories and transformational experience being part of the movement. 

Now that our model has proven successful, and to further expand our reach and mission, we are working on creating an online platform via mobile application to provide our training to a broader range of educators where they find resources and communicate with each other. Our prototype is presented in our video and we'll expand more on its functions in the next sections. 

In Madagascar, abusive power imbalances such as misogyny, classism, and colorism are rife, and 99% of youth in underserved communities report experiencing emotional abuse. The average person lives on less than $1/day, so going to therapy is a virtual impossibility — but schools, workplaces, Facebook, and TV are powerful channels.  

We currently work within communities where 99% of youth report experiencing emotional abuse. We seek to extend our work through the whole of Madagascar, and other countries. Without intervention, it is to be predicted that this statistic will only increase. Omena’s target population are those in vulnerable demographics, specifically the youth, as they drive generational and community wide change that is sustainable. 

We believe that the key to understanding and change begins with our youth themselves. They are at the heart of the present and the future of Malagasy culture. They hold the influence, drive, and ambition to build a better tomorrow and Omena is giving this important group the tools and means to make the change happen.

We are a team of survivors, working to help young adults (18-25 year old) and children (6-18) survivors and perpetrators wake up to abuse, heal, develop new skills, raise awareness, and aid in the healing of others — leading to the development of more advocates, the healing of a nation, and a methodology that can spread. 

The challenges we face of emotional abuse in Madagascar are not unique to our country, and we already have a great deal of interest from other countries we will partner with in the future so they can learn from our approach and deploy the same materials and methodology.

As Omena's Executive Director, my vision for Omena came to fruition during my training as a Sexual Assault Peer Educator at the Northern Virginia Community College. My training involved education on emotional abuse, and I quickly realized that the teachings reflected what I had endured throughout my life as I grew up in Madagascar. I completed a BA in Sociology, Psychology Organizational Track Studies, and Entrepreneurship at Brown University. 

My unique connection to this issues in Madagascar allowed me to create a program that would intervene and help drive a fundamental change in the Malagasy culture. As a young Malagasy and a survivor of emotional abuse, I am part of the community Omena serves. At Omena, Malagasy youth do not simply have a seat at the table in eradicating emotional abuse; we set the table. Feedback from and development by youth survivors iteratively creates 100% of our methodology. Everyone on our team is a local survivor engaged in a healing process and committed to systemic change — myself included. 

I’ve learned first hand what survivors need, how they heal, and how the cycle ends, and have experienced the ripple effect of healing from abuse in my own life. I am awed by the viral coefficient that co-creative healing, education, and support work can have in families, communities, and societies. As a survivor of childhood abuse, I deeply understand abuse and the power of breaking the cycle; born and raised in Madagascar, I see the societal upshot of abuse and its deleterious effects from the inside. The healing work I’ve done through Omena has enabled me to build thriving relationships in all aspects of  my life. I enjoy the diplomatic roles of spearheading partnerships, fundraising, and public speaking. And I love the day-to-day work; as a dyslexic person, my specific breed of neurodiversity is specialized for executive work: seeing the big picture, collaborating, and delegating operations and details. Omena has been my and my team’s saving grace, and we are quickly growing organically, multiplying my feeling of commitment. I envision a generation of cycle-breakers with greater self-esteem and inner strength, able to foster healthy relationships and drive positive change. We must work in children’s lives, at scale, to create those transformations. This work is my calling. 

1 billion children worldwide - especially in developing countries suffer from emotional abuse  (WHO, 2019) and 80% of children in Madagascar suffer from emotional abuse (UNICEF, 2019). 

Omena is the first organization in Madagascar to address the serious impact emotional abuse has on individuals, the community, and the inherent culture in the country. In the past four years, we have raised over $80,000, partnered with the Ministry of Education in Madagascar, and collaborated with 20+ organizations to develop a model in 1/6th of the time it would have taken us otherwise, impacting 1,500 students. 

We have also recruited a team of 15 and mobilized 250 educators in Antananarivo, Madagascar. No longer fearing criticism, 40% of our team members are starting projects they have always been afraid of. Of the 250 educators we have trained to date, 100% would recommend the program, and 98% stated that Omena was the single most transformative support they have received. Madagascar, the primary site of our work today, will be the groundspring for revolutionary healing work rooted in equity-oriented, decolonial, and antiracist principles. 

Our impact has been recognized by UNICEF, the Clinton Global Initiative, the Davis Project For Peace, TEDx, Forbes Under 30, MTV, and many more. 

We at Omena are applying to MIT’s Solve Challenge because we recognize the immense value in partnering with MIT’s innovation ecosystem and a community of Members that can help us overcome specific barriers and achieve our mission to break the cycle of emotional abuse through preventive evidence-based social-emotional education and community support.

As a youth-led and youth-centered organization, we are uniquely positioned to address the issue of emotional abuse, as we understand firsthand the impact it has on young people and their families. However, we face a number of challenges that we believe MIT’s Solve Challenge can help us overcome:

1) As a non-profit organization, we face significant financial barriers in terms of funding our programs and expanding our reach. We believe that partnering with Solve can help us access the financial resources and expertise we need to scale our programs and impact more communities.

2) We face technical barriers in terms of developing and implementing evidence-based social-emotional education programs that are culturally appropriate and effective in different contexts. We believe that Solve can connect us with technical experts and resources that can help us refine and improve our programs, as well as adapt them to different cultural and linguistic contexts.

3) We face legal and cultural barriers in terms of working within different regulatory and cultural contexts. We believe that Solve can help us navigate these barriers by connecting us with legal experts and cultural advisors who can guide us in working effectively with local communities and governments.

4) We face market barriers in terms of building awareness and support for our programs, as well as creating sustainable revenue streams to support our operations. We believe that Solve can help us connect with partners and stakeholders who can help us build awareness and support for our programs, as well as develop sustainable business models that can support our long-term growth and impact.

Partnering with MIT’s Solve Challenge can help us overcome these specific barriers and achieve our mission to break the cycle of emotional abuse through preventive evidence-based social-emotional education and community support. We are excited to collaborate with Solve and its partners to drive positive social impact and create lasting change in our communities.

While there are many nonprofit organizations focused on mental and emotional health, Omena is unique in its preventative strategy and location that it serves. Omena uses Social Emotional Learning (SEL) as the tool to prevent emotional abuse from escalating into physical violence. 

Omena focuses on breaking the cycle of emotional abuse through the use of a social movement, which relies heavily on people within a local community to make a change within their own community. Thus, Omena is able to attract a large community of volunteers who want to make a difference.

Additionally, our movement focuses on empowering youth as catalysts of change and to leadership roles in their communities. These aspects are heavily unique to Omena’s core model. Many other similar organizations lack one or more of these qualities, making Omena a unique organization with an incredible cause to support.

Most organizations focus on post-abuse aid and lack a viral component. Our novelty is that Omena is both preventative and a viral movement: unaware victims “wake up” and heal; a number become educators and share testimonies online, and, through their work, inspire others to join Omena as educators. Thus, our multiplying volunteers organically scale our reach. Timing via early intervention is key: we cut the problem off with kids via school-based education to prevent the generational cycle from passing to future partners, friends, coworkers, and kids — and catalyze collective change regarding laws, educational attainment, earning potential, social equality, and health outcomes, to name only a few. Educating the public is transforming the conversation and trajectory of Madagascar. Even parents are now requesting programming. We aim to become a household name via our campaigns and aim for our curriculum to become the gold standard for school health education across the developing world. 

Our goals for the next year, and the next five years consist of short, medium, and long term goals.

Short Term Goals

To teach young adults and 6-12 year olds about healthy relationships and red flags for personal safety and well-being. Tools and techniques will be provided through training events and school engagements which will encourage sharing of personal stories and seeking professional help where necessary. 10% of schools will be targeted initially with peer educators welcomed and providing regular sessions. We will see 85% of young adults we reach connecting with a minimum of 25 people in their influence sphere to spread awareness. 

Medium Term Goals

To create a cultural shift and change of mentality with zero tolerance for emotional abuse, which begins to heal past trauma and increases intergenerational emotional awareness. A repeating curriculum will be delivered to schools and community establishments which will reach 20% of the population of Madagascar by 2025 building emotional resilience.  We will embrace technology to share the educational content to a wider audience through our online platform and international partnerships. By year 3, having professionalized and systemized our model, we will start piloting in other regions of Madagascar. Each year we’re going to seed three to five new regions. 

Long Term Goals

Over the next 5 years, we hope to replicate the Madagascar model in emerging economies. But we’ll scale in Madagascar first and have our training included in the educational system.

By year 7 we will determine whether we will go for a franchise model in the nonprofit space like Teach for America or Ashoka and we will consolidate a business model which will be based on our training where we’ll get some percentage payment from each country. We will use their capacity, provide mentorship and set up a quality insurance system to make sure the model is successful.

As our advocacy work advances, we envision our movement will grow as big as the #metoo movement, which too begins to heal trauma and increases intergenerational emotional awareness. Work establishments and government institutions will support the movement and work towards legally recognizing forms of emotional abuse with ramifications.

We begin with surveys to our target audience to establish a baseline from which to build, and collaborate with UNICEF to gather more information on emotional abuse to track the impact of the training and community of practice on Educators and the adolescents we serve, and on secondary beneficiaries such as school staff and parents. 

We currently survey Community Educators at six months and one year to establish longitudinal data on program effectiveness, identify program improvements, and measure their effectiveness as Community Educators. Additionally, when participants meet for the monthly community of practice, they complete qualitative self-assessments that measure change over time. We use this data to continually refine our approach and objectives, and share high-level insights with local decision-makers (school officials and teachers). 

1. We are working with Sul & Associates International, a professional measurement and evaluation corporation, to develop culturally relevant assessments that will measure participant outcomes across four dimensions before and after one year of participating in Omena’s programming:

• awareness of the problem (e.g., 80% increase in participants who recognize signs of emotional abuse and can describe its consequences)

• awareness of self (e.g., 80% increase in participants who recognize different emotional states and report using emotional regulation strategies)

• change of attitude (e.g., 80% increase in participants who understand how emotional trauma relates to cultural factors, systems of oppression, and colonialism)

• change of behavior (e.g., 80% increase in participants who initiate and facilitate difficult conversations to set and maintain boundaries in their relationships and in the community)- For our SEL Curriculum in schools, we’ve been using proven instruments developed with support from The Floursih Foundation, that we’ve redesigned to make culturally relevant to our beneficiaries to measure:

• students’ self-regulation

• students’ social awareness (empathy)

• students’ understanding of others

• students’ caring for others

1. To reach our progress, we track the number of:

• students going through the community education training

• people impacted by Community Educators

• people attending the community of practice

• conferences and events held and estimated number of attendees

• participants feeling empowered to become ambassadors and continue to promote Omena’s message

At the end of 2024 we will assess the number of schools reached, volunteers trained and youth reached and assess targets for growth.

We will also develop delivery metrics for our public outreach and volunteer recruitment.

• # of followers 

• # of views on Website

• # of posts and stories shared

Once youth go through our training, they experience individual transformation, and  begin to create societal conditions that support stronger emotional health and well-being. In the long term, these changes will ameliorate poverty and improve Madagascar’s economic growth as its next generation becomes healthier and more resilient. Healthy future means embracing one’s self, to better accept each other. An immediate priority is to begin implementing data collection systems as we continue running our program, systematize our model, and digitize our training. By having the data to back up our impact, we will be able to prepare a pitch to federal governments on the cost-savings of preventing emotional abuse in children and young adults.

Hurt people hurt people — and/or keep letting people hurt them, often unwittingly. Emotional abuse is cyclical, taking root in each generation during childhood. Our work enters at the root via skill-based education and healing. We begin with individual-level intervention because emotional abuse is so pervasive across all contexts and relationships. By teaching young people how to identify and advocate for healthier relationships, others will follow suit, catalyzing collective change. We are generating an avant-guard of aware, committed, and skilled leaders who are already holding policy-shapers and decision-makers accountable for recognizing and mitigating the healthcare, incarceration, and other critical costs of emotional abuse, and seek to spawn macro policies and resource allocation that will deconstruct and replace the matrix of conditions currently perpetuating our devastating reality. We are fostering an aware population emotionally equipped to ask more of life — and get it.

COVID-19 has only exacerbated existing instances of emotional abuse, and social isolation has further restricted the accessibility of support resources. There has never been a better time to have a conversation about mental illness and emotional well-being, nor to teach young people what emotional abuse looks like. We at Omena understand the modern-day complexities of emotional abuse, which is why we started an online community for youth, and continue to hold support groups in the safety of schools. In the past year alone, our awareness campaign has extended to 13 countries and received a million online engagements. Innovation and global-mindedness lie at the foundation of all that we have done and continue to do. 

In 2019, I recorded my personal abuse testimony and shared it globally. The testimony went viral, and responses flooded in from 13 countries, leading to 100k interactions. ⅕ of those from Madagascar were interested in being the change, and I founded Omena in response. 

As technology helped found Omena, we continue to use online resources to carry out our operations.We provide skills-based education to children — about abuse, advocacy, emotional regulation, and healthy relating  — via school curriculum. We also perform corporate training and run awareness campaigns via social and traditional media that have reached over 1.5M people. We take a preventative, evidence-based approach, and aim to cut the intergenerational cycle of abuse off with children, before they go on to repeat it either as perpetrators or as recipients. We mobilize survivors to identify, stop, collectively heal in self-help groups, and educate about abuse — and to go public with their testimonies. Each educator influences orders of magnitude more people, and emboldens others to become educators, 100% of whom would recommend Omena. The organization also has an online presence for further exposure. In addition, Omena is in the works of creating a mobile app that creates a learning community for educators that can share and exchange resources to further combat emotional abuse.

Omena's mobile application is not just a tool for addressing emotional abuse, it is also a key part of the organization's strategy to expand its online presence and leverage technology in the fight against abuse. However, designing a technology platform for a low-resource setting like Madagascar comes with its own unique set of challenges. The lack of reliable internet access in the country means that many users may struggle to access the app's resources and tools. To address this challenge, Omena has adopted a data-lite approach to technology development, focusing on designing a platform that can be accessed with minimal connectivity. By designing technology that is data-lite, we can ensure that our tools and resources are accessible to a wider range of users, including those with limited connectivity. This can be achieved through various means, such as using compressed media formats, reducing the amount of content that needs to be loaded, and minimizing the use of data-intensive features such as video streaming. As a result, our training and resource content will be available offline. 

This allows users to access important information about emotional abuse even when they are not connected to the internet. Additionally, the community platform has been designed to require only a small amount of data, making it accessible to users who may be struggling with expensive data costs. By adopting a data-lite approach to technology development, we are helping to ensure that our valuable resources and tools are available to everyone who needs them, regardless of their connectivity challenges. This approach aligns with the rising digitization and digital economies on the African continent, where many organizations are leveraging technology to drive social change and improve people's lives.

At Omena, our mission is to break the cycle of emotional abuse by equipping, supporting, and empowering children and young adults with social and emotional intelligence tools to nurture self-esteem and empathy. We believe that diversity, equity, and inclusivity are critical to achieving our mission and creating a world where all children can grow up free from emotional abuse.

To incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusivity into our work, we take a multi-faceted approach. Here are the ways we strive to create a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive organization:

• Diversity of Leadership Team: We are committed to building a leadership team that reflects the diversity of the communities we serve. Our team includes individuals from a wide range of backgrounds, including different races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, and socio-economic backgrounds. By bringing together individuals with different life experiences and perspectives, we are able to better understand the complex issues we are working to address and develop more effective solutions.

• Elevating Voices of Marginalized Populations: Omena is intentional about elevating the voices of the populations that are most likely to experience emotional abuse in their relationships, including youth, women, low-income persons, chronically ill or disabled persons, racial and ethnic minorities, and others who have constantly been relegated to the margins. Through our direct work with young people, Omena will improve family dynamics, ultimately driving community-level transformations.

• Impact on Developing Countries: In light of our focus on developing countries, our resources will lead to more people feeling safe and empowered to use their gifts in service to their communities. In turn, these strengthened communities will generate the economic growth, development, and innovation that is crucial to ameliorating historic inequities between majority-white nations and the global majority. Madagascar, the primary site of our work today, could become the breeding ground for revolutionary healing work rooted in equity-oriented, decolonial, and antiracist principles.

• Team's Goals for Becoming More Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive: While we are proud of the diversity of our current team, we recognize that there is always room for improvement. To that end, we have set several goals for becoming more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. These include expanding our outreach efforts to ensure that we are reaching individuals from a wide range of backgrounds and communities, developing partnerships with organizations that represent marginalized groups and working to amplify their voices and perspectives, and conducting regular diversity and inclusion training for all team members to help us better understand the nuances of these issues and how they impact our work.

• Actions Taken to Achieve Those Goals: To achieve these goals, we have taken several actions, including hosting events and workshops that focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion in our field, partnering with organizations that represent marginalized groups and providing support and resources for their initiatives, conducting surveys and assessments to better understand the diversity of our team and identifying areas where we can improve, and regularly revisiting our mission and values to ensure that they align with our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

At Omena, our business model is centered around providing social and emotional intelligence tools to children and young adults in order to break the cycle of emotional abuse. Our key customers are educators, and children with stakeholders such as schools, and parents who are seeking effective strategies and resources to help children develop healthy relationships and build emotional resilience.

To provide value, we have developed a range of offerings that are designed to help children and young adults develop social and emotional intelligence skills. These include:

• Curriculum and Training: We offer comprehensive social and emotional intelligence curriculum and training for educators and parents. Our curriculum is designed to be flexible, engaging, and age-appropriate, and it includes a range of activities, exercises, and assessments that help children develop skills such as empathy, self-awareness, and communication.

• Workshops and Events: We offer workshops and events for schools and organizations that focus on specific topics related to emotional intelligence, such as conflict resolution, self-esteem, and healthy relationships. These events are led by our experienced facilitators and are designed to be interactive, engaging, and fun.

• Digital Resources: We offer a range of digital resources, including e-books, online courses, and webinars, that are designed to help educators and parents integrate social and emotional intelligence into their daily routines. These resources are easily accessible and can be used by individuals or groups.

• Community Support: we are also supported by a dedicated team of volunteers who contribute their time and expertise to the organization.

To provide these products and services, we rely on a grants and donations. We seek grants and donations from foundations and individuals who are committed to our mission and want to support our work. Our business model is designed to provide value to our customers and beneficiaries while also generating revenue that allows us to sustain and grow our impact. We believe that by providing effective tools and resources for social and emotional intelligence, we can help break the cycle of emotional abuse and create a brighter future for children and young adults.

At Omena, we are committed to becoming financially sustainable in order to continue our mission of breaking the cycle of emotional abuse. Our goal is to create a self-sustaining model that allows us to expand our reach and impact. Currently, we rely on grants and donations to fund our work. However, we recognize that this is not a sustainable approach in the long term. Therefore, we have developed a plan to diversify our revenue streams and become financially self-sufficient.

One of the key components of our plan is to develop and sell social-emotional learning (SEL) resources and training programs to schools, youth organizations, and other institutions. These resources will be designed to help children and young adults build social and emotional intelligence skills, such as empathy, self-awareness, and self-esteem. By offering these resources and programs, we can generate revenue while also fulfilling our mission of equipping and empowering children with the tools to prevent emotional abuse.

In addition to selling resources and training programs, we plan to offer consulting services to organizations that are interested in incorporating SEL into their programs and curriculums. Our team of experts can provide guidance on how to create a safe and inclusive learning environment and how to teach SEL skills effectively. We also plan to explore partnerships and collaborations with other organizations and institutions that share our mission and values. By working together, we can pool resources and expertise to create more impactful programs and initiatives.

Finally, we will continue to apply for grants and seek out donations to support our work, but we will do so strategically and with a long-term perspective. We will prioritize grants and donations that align with our mission and values and that provide funding for specific initiatives or projects. Our plan for financial sustainability is centered around leveraging our expertise in SEL to create high-quality resources and programs that provide value to our customers and beneficiaries. By diversifying our revenue streams and partnering with other organizations, we can ensure that we are able to continue our mission of breaking the cycle of emotional abuse for years to come.

Omena has been successful in securing $80,000 in the past three years from various sources to support our work towards achieving financial sustainability. We have received grants from notable organizations such as the Clinton Foundation, Davis Foundation, and Social Enterprise Greenhouse. These grants have allowed us to expand our programs and reach more young people who are at risk of emotional abuse.

In addition to grants, we have also been successful in securing seed funding and pitch competition awards at Brown University. These include the B-Lab Women's Entrepreneurship Award, Hazeltine Grant Competition, Center for Human Rights & Humanitarian Grant, and USAID Youth Excel Grant Competition. These funds have allowed us to develop and implement new programs and initiatives that have had a positive impact on the young people we serve.

We have also been fortunate to receive fellowships such as a current Finalist of the Echoing Green Fellowship, The Social Innovation Fellowship, Enid Wilson Undergraduate Fellowship, and Royce Fellowship. These fellowships have provided us with additional resources and opportunities to grow and expand our work.

Moreover, we have received philanthropic donations from individuals who believe in our mission and want to support our efforts to break the cycle of emotional abuse. These donations have been crucial in helping us to sustain our work and reach more young people who need our support.

Overall, the financial support we have received has allowed us to develop and expand our programs and reach more young people who are at risk of emotional abuse. We are committed to continuing to seek out new sources of funding and to build sustainable revenue streams that will allow us to continue our work and achieve our long-term goals.

We are currently working on improving data capture and preparing a pitch for the government to invest in abuse prevention while amplifying meaningful belonging and compensation within our educator cohort. We are also developing revenue streams that create a virtuous, self-sustaining cycle for Omena.