Today’s #SurvivorSunday feature, Ch-Hara Davis, is something like a beauty and a beast.  Not only has she survived things that no child or woman should bear, but she uses her testimony to inspire and educate others on the perils of sexual abuse and domestic violence.  Now the founder of her own non-profit organization, S.C.A.R.S., Inc., her fight for awareness is sure to impact her community and beyond!

Ch-Hara’s Story:

While other little girls were just learning how to write their name and read, I was being violated. It was at this age of 4 that I was introduced to hurt, abandonment, anger and sex. While my mother and step father relaxed in their bedroom with their door closed, I was being sexually assaulted by an older male cousin. The few times it happened prior, it was a rub here or there while fully clothed. Today he felt bold enough to take things further. He was caught by my mother and step father, ruffed up a little and sent home to live his life while I was shipped to North Carolina to live with my grandmother. I never really understood why I was being punished as if I had done something wrong but I was just happy to be away from it all. Shortly after, I was snatched from my grandmother’s and returned to NJ to a new home and baby brother. Still not understanding what happened previously, all the new changes were too much for one small child to handle. It was at that moment, while feeling like the only person that could protect me or listen was all the way in North Carolina, that I began to write stories and poetry. Fast forward years later and here I am, now a teenager, still battling with the memories of my four year old self. Battling sexual urges, depression and anxiety, I contemplated suicide several times. Wondering would I be missed if in fact I decided to no longer live. I wanted answers and when I didn’t get them, I turned from partner to partner looking for whatever I thought was missing.

I was married with two kids by the age of 21, hoping and praying that this was it and that I had finally found whatever it was I was looking for in the streets. My marriage lasted for 14 months before separating. It was during my separation that I began the relationship with the man that almost took my life. He came packaged as an educated man, in school, a model saying and doing all the right things to this broken woman. I hadn’t felt like this in a long time so it was easy for me to make excuses for the pushing, shoving, head locks, tongue lashings and cheating. On 7/31/11, he felt it was time for me to meet my maker because by then I was tired of the abuse. I was tired of being held hostage for days at a time with no communication to the outside world unless he authorized it. On that day I found myself looking down the barrel of a gun in an apartment no one had an address to. All I could do was close my eyes and pray I make it to see my babies again. He pulled the trigger! The gun jammed! Meanwhile, the phone was ringing off the hook with a call requesting he come to hospital to say his last goodbyes to his grandfather. He kicked me out of the apartment shortly after and from that day forward I promised I wouldn’t turn back. What I didn’t understand at the time was why had I survived when so many around me had been killed. I came to understand that I was needed to finish the mission to help educate men, women and children about domestic violence and sexual assault. Now the founder of my own organization, S.C.A.R.S. Inc. (Survivors Connecting And Restoring Self), my work has just begun and I plan to educate, help and do so much more.