Have Justice Will Travel
When Wynona Ward read affidavits from domestic violence victims in law school, she realized “women were being kicked and hit and beaten in the same way my mother had been 40 years earlier.”
So, after getting her law degree at age 48, Ward founded the nonprofit “Have Justice Will Travel” in 1998 to provide free legal and social services to rural, low-income Vermonters who have suffered domestic and sexual violence and have few support agencies to rely on.
HJWT now operates four offices throughout the state. Ward and three other attorneys visit women who can’t get to an office or may be ashamed to leave the house; they assess what the women may need, from children’s clothes to help with an electric bill. They also provide legal representation and drive clients to the courthouse to obtain restraining orders or to fight for child custody.
Over the past 12 years, HJWT has counseled over 10,000 women. It also offers a program called Women in Transition Life Skills and Mentoring to help clients become self-sufficient by learning parenting and job skills along with money management. “Once a woman leaves an abusive situation, it’s a whole new world,” Ward says. “We want them to know that there is help out there.”
Read & learn more www.havejusticewilltravel.org
