![\"\"](\"https:\/\/madd.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Alex-headsho-300x300-1-300x300.jpeg\")
Even during a global pandemic over the last year, victim services agencies—organizations like ours and dedicated professionals across the country—quickly mobilized and adapted to ensure that services for survivors of crime continued and that they could still participate in the justice system in meaningful ways.<\/p>\n
National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, April 18 – 24, is an opportunity for us as an organization, and as a nation, to honor those who have come before us and paved a way for victims and survivors to have a voice, an opportunity to raise awareness for victims’ rights, and to remember victims and the professionals that serve them.<\/p>\n
This year’s theme “Support Survivors. Build Trust. Engage Communities” is especially meaningful. It emphasizes the contributions that we all can make toward building trust in our community’s capacity to support the healing journeys of crime victims.<\/p>\n
We are eternally grateful to the survivors who bravely and courageously use their voice for the voiceless, for those who continue to revisit their worst days, in hopes that others won’t have to experience what we have experienced. As a victim of drunk driving, I know that I will continue to share my story until it doesn’t happen to any more little girls, and no other families have to endure such trauma. I believe that if I don’t keep talking about it, it’s going to keep happening. Our greatest power is in our stories, and in the community we create through the “club” none of us ever wanted to be a part of.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/madd.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/CVRW_Social_Instagram-300x300-1-300x300.png\")