THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 7, 1996 TAG: 9610070053
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: 69 lines
The scene might be from a '50s cartoon:
Frame One: A smoke-belching locomotive bears down on a car straddling railroad tracks. Inside, a young woman struggles and begs for her life.
Frame Two: The car's driver relents at the last moment, punching the clutch with his foot as he jams the shift into first gear. The car lurches out of danger's path in the nick of time.
This is what Francesca Dillard-Moore remembers.
Fear so seared in her memory that it turns her face ashen as she relives the minutes of horror many years later.
Dillard-Moore was a high school student and was in an abusive relationship.
One day her steady boyfriend would be sending her roses; the next, threatening to kill himself if she left him. The scene on the railroad crossing was meant to instill fear in Francesca - fear of doing anything her boyfriend didn't approve.
Francesca couldn't seem to extricate herself from the tangled web of control. And many of her friends were in the same boat.
Now 30, and happily married, Dillard-Moore will share her experiences with local teens as part of an effort to help them understand the dynamics of dating violence. By one estimate, abuse of one kind or another is part of one out of four teenage relationships. It's a dynamic that can be deadly, as evidenced by a number of recent cases here and elsewhere.
Dillard-Moore, program services director at the Portsmouth Help and Emergency Response agency, will lead the workshop project that's being funded by a $9,500 grant from Portsmouth General Hospital Foundation.
Originally geared to inform 300 Norfolk and Portsmouth teens, the response of schools to HER's project proposal has been so positive that executive director Sandra Becker plans to offer the program to teens in other South Hampton Roads cities.
The HER shelter has beds for 42 women and children who are victims of domestic abuse. Its location is kept secret to ensure the safety of those who take refuge there.
Help and Emergency Response - which began 11 years ago - gets about one-third of its operating funds from United Way of Hampton Roads, whose annual campaign is now under way. Nearly one-third of the $15.3 million goal has been reached.
United Way helps support 68 agencies in South Hampton Roads. Last year, one in five residents got assistance of some kind through United Way's work.
Francesca Dillard-Moore eventually broke free of the relationship that threatened her life. But many girls in such relationships go on to become battered wives, and this is the pattern the teen dating violence project seeks to end.
Nothing at the HER shelter is done by rule of thumb, because Becker and Dillard-Moore know the origin of the phrase. In an earlier age, British men could legally beat their wives - so long as they didn't use anything thicker than their thumb, explained Becker.
``It's all an issue of power and control. But real men don't beat their wives,'' Dillard-Moore said. ``I finally realized that this isn't how it's supposed to be.'' MEMO: For more information on HER and its projects, call 485-1445. The
hot line number is 485-3384. ILLUSTRATION: VICKI CRONIS
The Virginian-Pilot
Francesca Dillard-Moore wants to save young women from violence.
GRAPHIC
UNITED WAY OF SOUTH HAMPTON ROADS
SOURCE: United Way
KEYWORDS: UNITED WAY by CNB