Wounded Healers: Surviving to Thriving
An Interview with ESD Professional Nuna Gleason
In the Empowerment Self-Defense (ESD) community, we find ourselves surrounded by inspiring humans. Changemakers, warriors for peace, rebels, and disruptors are not the exception, but the rule. When we feel down about the violence we see in the world, we never have to look far to find a boost of optimism. ESD is the closest thing we know to bottling hope.
This month, we are pleased to bring you an interview with one such inspiring individual. ESD Global Level 1 graduate and the embodiment of grassroots action, Nuna Gleason is the founder and Executive Director of Wounded Healers International.
I was lucky to spend a week with Nuna in Los Angeles in June, where she was one of 14 participants in the ESD teacher training I co-facilitated with Carrie Smith and Jay O’Shea, so I can speak to the power and inspiration she brings to everything that she does.
There are few things as profound as hearing first-hand somebody’s story of healing and empowerment. And when those people are actively working in the space of violence prevention? Even better.
Nuna’s story does not disappoint.
About Wounded Healers International
Wounded Healers International is on a mission to, “end sexual violence by increasing awareness and prevention, supporting survivors, and creating pathways for African women and girls to break the cycle of violence within their families and communities.”
The problem is clear—and heartbreaking. One in three girls will become victims of child sexual abuse before her 18th birthday, and one in five has had a live birth or is pregnant with her first child. In Kenya, according to the CDC, in 71% of these cases the girls are infected with HIV.
Forty percent of girls in Kenya drop out of school due to pregnancy. Most are unlikely to return, which affects their long-term educational, economic, and health outcomes. Forty-four percent of African women have been subjected to gender-based violence. Eighty-six percent of the women supported by Wounded Healers were sexually abused as teenagers.
Wounded Healers provide women who have survived sexual violence with tools for physical, mental, and economic healing and freedom through safe housing, education, healthcare, counseling, and economic empowerment. Their programs empower women and girls to prevent violence, break down cultural myths surrounding violence against women, and feel stronger and more confident in their bodies.
Our Interview with Founder and Executive Director Nuna Gleason
What inspired you to create Wounded Healers?
I was inspired by how much hope I found for myself as I struggled to overcome the trauma of sexual violence in a very biased community.
I am encouraged by the transformation and healing I witness daily in my work. I see many girls and women getting more comfortable with their bodies and exercising their rights and leadership in small ways. This assures me that there will be continuous community empowerment and that cases of sexual violence will one day end.
What do you consider to be some of the key solutions to gender-based violence?
Education is the key. When I say education, I mean not only a college diploma but also empowerment. Whenever I talk to women in my community, there is so much they do not know, including information about their fundamental rights. I come from a community that has ancient traditions; for most people, that is all they know and believe. Men own almost every resource—money, land, livestock, and children. Women are dependent on their husbands in everything and are taught to be submissive no matter the situation. They persevere in abusive homes because they do not have a place to go or the resources to take care of themselves.
What do you wish people would know about how to support survivors of sexual violence?
I hope people will believe survivors and know that healing is a long, painful process. I wish people understood that sometimes survivors take three steps forward and five back—and not judge them for it. Healing from rape is difficult and calls for community support.
We can support survivors by believing in them and creating a safe space for them to speak. Most survivors need love and understanding.
How does your work align with the SDGs?
My work to end sexual violence aligns with gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls (SDG 5), as well as gender equality targets pertinent to other goals. The inclusion of gender equality in these goals mainly creates a renewed impetus to end all forms of violence against women and girls “in public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation.” This target reflects global recognition that eliminating violence against women and girls is key to achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment, which are essential conditions for sustainable development.
What are some of the challenges you have faced?
Our main challenge has been interactions with victim-blaming systems; in most cases, survivors never receive justice and are re-victimized when they try to seek justice. Another challenge is complicated relationships with the police. To combat these challenges, we focus on teaching people not to abuse others, offer training to the police on how to respond to sexual violence reports, and provide holistic support to survivors as they heal and become leaders in ending the cycle of violence.
You work in two very different cultural contexts. Can you share how those contexts complement each other?
We work in very rural areas in Kenya where there are low rates of literacy, as well as places where people hold strong traditional beliefs. We also work in Maine, North America, with migrants from Africa, most of them asylum seekers. In Maine, more agencies provide free support to survivors.
Working internationally offers a lot of knowledge and resources. In America, I learn from many sources and teach most of it to my team in Kenya. I have met many people and had access to opportunities that empowered me, and I have been able to offer the same to my team in Kenya. I always joke that my being in America is like a cow grazing in fertile land, and my milk feeds more than a thousand people back in the dry land.
On the other hand, the time difference is a challenge. Kenya is seven hours ahead of Maine; I always have to wake up to work at 2 am EST to match the team in Kenya. If I don’t, I miss opportunities to empower women who can only gather in our center once a week to use the internet.
The other significant challenge, especially in America, is the criminalization of survivors when they try to defend themselves from violence. Most black people from Africa do not want to take empowerment self-defense, because they are scared they will be put in jail if they protect themselves. For most of them, English is not their first language, and they live in fear due to their immigration status. That breaks my heart.
What does empowerment mean to you?
Empowerment means being aware of myself, my needs, desires, and boundaries, and being able to honor and protect them from any attack. When I began my empowerment work, most women, especially survivors of sexual and gender-based violence in my community, had normalized the abuse and didn't know that they could do something to protect themselves without being violent or disrespecting their beliefs. I taught them de-escalation and communication, and most reported that they stopped violence when it occurred, or before. Today, our organization is led by healed or healing survivors, women who now understand the power of loving and believing in themselves. They have taken on leadership roles to educate each other about communication and boundaries setting tools.
How do you create safe spaces for healing?
We create a safe space for anyone in our training to choose how they want to participate; we realize that the people we work with have experienced violence, and most are still in very violent situations and cannot leave. We create empowering discussions and questions without judgment, blame, or forcing solutions or opinions about what they need to do. We encourage survivors to help us learn how best to support them to feel safe.
I think violence prevention professionals should know that it is challenging for survivors to decide for themselves or even understand their needs due to trauma. Violence introduces cynicism, and sometimes nothing makes sense for survivors at that moment. I have shared my story in most of these empowerment spaces, because I realized it brings connection with other survivors. Most survivors just want to identify with other people who have learned from similar experiences, so I think making more training personal, disclosing some of our struggles as professionals, would humanize the training and give hope to the people we serve.
How does Empowerment Self-Defense fit into your vision for Wounded Healers?
ESD is one of the most critical skills I have learned; it has helped me to feel comfortable and have very empowered interactions in my daily life. When I started Wounded Healers, I focused on creating awareness of sexual violence and teaching people what to do in case they are sexually assaulted. However, I did not teach people how to protect themselves actively in instances of violence. Therefore, we at Wounded Healers have embraced ESD in our community-based prevention work.
Most women did not know how to protect themselves at all, because women in my community are expected to follow anything that their husbands decide, but now with empowerment and self-defense, we can simply teach women about their rights and how to protect them without being mistaken for rude or disrespectful to their partners.
ESD also includes men and boys as allies; we teach them bystander violence prevention so that we can individually and collectively end violence in our communities. I wish I had a bigger team to teach as many more people in my community as possible.
If you could tell your younger self one thing about empowerment, what would it be?
Nuna, you can be empowered as a girl, and you are worth fighting for.
Author: Toby Israel / Nuna Gleason
Editor: Tasha Ina Church / Qwan Smith
Photos: Used with permission from Nuna Gleason
About Nuna Gleason
Nuna is an intuitive counselor and an empathetic storyteller. She is a certified global Empowerment self-defense instructor; she teaches women and children an evidence-based, trauma-informed approach to resisting and preventing violence. Nuna advocates for social change by transforming gendered ideologies and collaborating with national leaders in government and non-governmental to address the root causes of vulnerability, mobilize survivors, and close the gaps that marginalize victims of sexual violence. She believes every survivor should feel seen, heard, respected, and inspired to become their hero. She also believes everyone has something to offer the world and a role to play in changing it for the better.
Learn more about Wounded Healers at their website, or follow this inspiring organization on Facebook and Instagram!
Would you like to share about your ESD work, or do you think a certain ESD organization should be featured? Reach out at toby@esdprofessionals.org about contributing to the Association of ESD Professionals blog!
