Women Helping Women End the Violence in Guatemala: International Women's Day

San Francisco, CA, March 10, 2011 --(PR.com)-- In the aftermath of 30 years of civil war, Guatemalan girls and young women continue to be brutally raped, tortured, and killed at the rate of over 700 per year. “These are very powerful men that use women as their objects. And if women no longer want to be in that situation, if they want to leave, they are killed. Women are used to threaten their adversaries: if you don’t do what I want I will kill your wife, your daughter, your mother,” Attorney General Claudia Paz said in a PBS broadcast yesterday. There are women in Guatemala working hard to educate communities about the prevention of violence: women like Alejandra Colom of Population Control and Norma Cruz, director of Survivors’ Foundation, who despite death threats continue to resist.

Wendy Loomis is a composer living in the San Francisco Bay Area; she is co-founder of independent label Copus Music LLC. Three years ago she wrote a song called “Anything I Perceive” after seeing a piece on Good Morning America where the 16 U.S. women Senators were interviewed by Diane Sawyer. Wendy was so moved by the intelligence and persistence of these women that she composed a song with lyrics inspiring girls to be anything they perceive. As a thank-you she sent a copy of the CD to the offices of these 16 women. No one responded.

Ms. Loomis would like to donate all profits from the sales of “Anything I Perceive” to these organizations in Guatemala where the real work of women helping women is being done. Downloads are available at CDBaby.

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