It looks like your device language is set to . Would you like to translate this page?
City of Philadelphia
Browse resources for leaders of immigrant faith communities.
One of our working groups planned and hosted the Immigrant Faith Leaders’ Summit in May 2023. We wanted to help faith leaders better understand domestic violence in immigrant communities.
This page includes videos from the summit, a screening guide, and other related resources.
Jump to:
All videos have captions available in English, Spanish, French, Haitian Creole, and Indonesian. To adjust the caption settings, select the gear icon and choose your preferred language.
Featuring Emeka Nwadiora, Associate Professor, Temple University
In this video, Dr. Nwadiora defines domestic violence and talks about types of abusive behaviors (like physical, sexual, emotional, economic, social, and immigration abuse). He also discusses its impact on individuals and their children, and how to help someone experiencing domestic violence.
Featuring Lina Duiker, Staff Attorney, Domestic Violence Initiative, HIAS Pennsylvania
In this video, Lina talks about legal services offered by HIAS Pennsylvania’s Domestic Violence Initiative. She also gives some basic information about:
Featuring Richie Schulz, Community Education Supervisor, Lutheran Settlement House
In this video, Richie talks about how to support survivors of domestic violence with skills that will empower them. During the presentation, Richie plays a video clip from the Disney movie Moana, to illustrate the concepts of agency and empowerment. You can pause the video and watch “I am Moana (Song of the Ancestors)” on YouTube to add to your learning experience.
Featuring Tony Lapp, Executive Director, Courdea
In this video, Tony talks about intervening with individuals who cause harm. The presentation offers insight from the perpetrators’ viewpoint instead of the victims. He discusses how communities can come together to support and change abusive behavior.
Featuring Maryellen Fields, Staff Attorney, Women Against Abuse Legal Center
In this video, Maryellen talks about the different ways victims and survivors of domestic violence can use legal services for help. Maryellen describes Protection from Abuse (PFA) Orders and other protective measures.
We’ve collected slides or a handout to pair with each video. We’ve also provided our post-event report with lessons learned from the summit.
You can use the screening guide to plan conversations about domestic violence with your community. Any community group can use these resources, but they’re especially useful for faith communities.
A Shared Safety working group organized this summit in 2023. They also created the videos and related resources. This project was led by staff from AFAHO (Cait O’Donnell) and SEAMAAC (Donna Backues).
The working group included:
Khadijetou (Khadi) Diagana, MPH (c), created the pre- and post-summit surveys. She also wrote the Lessons Learned document and the screening guide.
Tommy Butler was the videographer.
Interfaith Philadelphia facilitated the opening dialogue among attendees.
This project would not have been possible without the hard work of the working group members, presenters, and the many attendees. Funding for this project came through Shared Safety, via the Philadelphia City Fund.