Mimi Kim

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2004

Mimi Kim

Creative Interventions

http://www.creative-interventions.org/

Los Angeles, California, United States

Civil and Human Rights

The Bold Idea:

Re/envisioning solutions to family, intimate partner and other forms of interpersonal violence by embracing the values of social justice and liberation.

Despite the widespread and devastating consequences of intimate violence, current social services and state interventions fail to reach the many women and children unable or unwilling to engage in these systems. A 2003 Ms. Foundation report concluded that mainstream interventions offer inaccessible, disempowering and even harmful solutions to women and children seeking safety. Mandatory arrest policies are found to actually increase the likelihood of domestic violence within the African American community. While other studies confirm that women facing violence are most likely to turn first to family and friends, many current anti-violence approaches discourage the involvement of these groups by limiting intervention options to the social service and criminal justice systems.

Based in Oakland, California, Creative Interventions targets these immediate and intimate networks and offers resources to maximize their capacity to intervene effectively in violence. The result is the creation of family and community safety networks and systems of intervention mobilized at early and multiple points of abuse.

Biography:

Mimi’s idea for Creative Interventions emerged out of 15 years of experience in the domestic violence and sexual assault fields. Mimi received her Masters in Social Work from New York University in 2003.

In an interview with Echoing Green, Mimi talk about starting her organization and her hopes for the future.

Moment of Obligation: When and why did you decide to start your organization?
I think those of us creating alternatives for social change must be honest, reflective and humble about the solutions we propose. If social change is to happen on a massive scale, then we must ask ourselves certain questions. Are these alternatives ones which we ourselves would choose? Are these solutions ones which many people would choose?

I see the creation of support for survivors of domestic violence and interventions to stop violence as alternatives to present conditions which actually tolerate, condone or promote violence against women and children. Are our solutions to violence ones which we ourselves would choose? Are they ones which many people would choose?

I realized that after taking hundreds of crisis calls from survivors of domestic violence, I almost always asked the questions, “Have you thought of leaving?” “Have you called the police?” Why did my solutions presume that leaving was the best option? Why did they presume that the best way to achieve safety was to call the police?

The moment that the approach of Creative Interventions began to crystallize was when facing the situation of friends involved in a long-time abusive relationship. Rather than empowering interventions to violence, I could only provide solutions based upon escape from the relationship or the involvement of the police. My friend understood these options well and rejected them. I wondered what it would take to end the violence. My instinct was to collectively gather friends and community resources to confront the violence, yet my training told me that such an approach would be ineffective and dangerous. I wondered what I would need to take this next step. A place like Creative Interventions was the answer – one which would provide a safe space for creatively exploring intervention options and one which could give me more information and tools to carry out these options.

Who do you look up to and why?
I look up to the unnamed and unheralded women, men and children who have courageously confronted violence in all forms just because it was the right thing to do. I look up to the Indonesian mother who stood up to her son-in-law and ordered him out of the house forever after he twisted her daughter’s arm one too many times. I look up to the Latino teenage boy who gathered his friends to confront the father of their girl friend who was regularly beaten. I look up to the Korean woman who threatened her husband with divorce the first time he raised a hand to her knowing that a divorce would cast her out of her community. There are many such stories held only in memory which will be documented as part of the research for Creative Interventions.

A snapshot in ten years: What is your dream of what’s happening? What impact has your organization had?
In ten years, I hope that the knowledge, the vast array of tools and options and the sheer sense of possibility generated from the work of Creative Interventions will have created a widespread community tradition and practice of early interventions to family and intimate partner violence. I hope that all communities expect that any form of violence will be immediately confronted, that survivors of violence will receive full and unhesitating support, and that anyone perpetrating violence will be expected to take nothing less than full accountability. I hope that children will grow up knowing that they will be safe and that violations of their safety will not be tolerated. I hope that every child grows up to be an adult who knows how to nurture safety and respect.

In ten years, I hope that Creative Interventions is just one of a multitude of centers offering resources for community-based interventions. I hope that this knowledge and these resources exist in every neighborhood, every school, every daycare center, every church, every household, within every group of friends, in the pool hall, at the neighborhood bar, at the barber shop, at the corner store.

What’s in your CD player right now?

• John Coltrane, A Love Supreme
• La Niña de Los Peines
• Massive Attack, No Protection
• Joni Mitchell, Court and Spark
• Feedback Poets
• Nas

What are a few book recommendations (pleasure, work and anything in between)?
The I Ching translated by Alfred Huang

What websites do you go to often (work or personal)?
I recommend that people spend less time looking at websites.

Quick piece of advice for people starting social change organizations:
Build a strong foundation and structure to create sustainable conditions for social justice within your own organization. Make the work serious and come from a place of joy.