Cynthia Waring
Cynthia Waring discovered writing while going through a horrendous divorce in 1983. She contacted the writing teacher who allowed her to try the class out before committing. Fifteen years later, she finished her book, Bodies Unbound, about her life as a massage therapist and stories of her clients over the course of twenty-five years. She shopped around before finding a publishing company interested in publishing stories by unknown authors. While they liked her writing, they wanted Cynthia to put more of her own personal stories into the book. It took her eight months to weave her life stories into those of her clients. As Cynthia says, “If I was going to write about the intimacy of others, I should be intimate myself.” Unfortunately by the time she finished the new version,
the publishing company was no longer interested. Cynthia soon got involved in the planning of International Women’s Week and was provided with an evening to read excerpts from her book and five months to prepare. She ended up creating a one woman show by memorizing the pieces she selected, adding music, placing a massage table on stage, sitting on the table, standing up, walking around the table, scarves and candles. She invited her publishers to attend the performance, and after she received a standing ovation, the publishers told her that they would publish the book if she kept performing her show. Cynthia ended up performing over 100 shows from Los Angeles to New York to the Edinburgh Fringe Theater Festival in Scotland. She sold over 20,000 copies of her book and had requests to guide others in writing their own stories. Prior to Covid-19, Cynthia was teaching three full classes near her home in Santa Barbara. Now, she is teaching online and finding joy in helping other women find their story to write. According to Cynthia, “writing your story is not just therapeutic, but enlightening to find what life has given you to say.”
Stephanie Etienne
Stephanie Etienne was born in Port Au Prince, Haiti. In the 1990s, her mother migrated to the Dominican Republic with her brother, two sisters, Rachel and Johanna, and herself. Stephanie and her brother, Mercelin, grew up like twins and learned much from each other. As she had started kindergarten in Haiti and attended elementary school in the Dominica Republic, Stephanie had difficulty with learning due to a language barrier and trouble concentrating. Her mother, Marie Gabrielle Dumas, taught her the importance of building a relationship with God daily and the importance of education whether through homeschooling or attending school. In order to communicate with her family, Stephanie learned Haitian Creole and French, but in the Dominican Republic,
she had to learn Spanish. Unfortunately, in school she earned mostly C’s and D’s due to not being able to understand or retain information. However, when she was given a state exam, Stephanie passed with flying colors and was allowed to proceed to the next grade level. She continued to read the Bible daily and pray to God, and while still in elementary school, was baptized into Seventh Day Adventist. Her faith has always allowed her to grow stronger each day and overcome. Stephanie feels that music is her way to connecting with her faith and has used it to praise and worship daily in her life. She realized that knowledge is power and that once she has it, it can not be taken away. As Stephanie states, “If I can learn the letters and numbers, I can do anything and can teach and educate others as well.” Today, she lives with her son, Jaden Davis.
Barbara Sanchez
Barbara Sanchez first experienced domestic violence while in a relationship with an old boyfriend who she was dating early in her career as a publicist. In this industry, you have to get out, network and put your face out there. However, she found herself staying in and not even seeing her family. While a part of her knew it was an unhealthy life, Barbara made excuses to assure herself that it was actually good. One night, a previously non-physical existence changed when she mentioned that she had to leave one night to cover an event, drive talent around or something else related to her job. Her boyfriend didn’t believe her, became extremely angry,
physically violent and attacked her. Barbara called 911 and spent the night at the hospital, after learning that she had lost the pregnancy she was in the early stages of. Between the loss of the baby and words from close family and friends, she knew she had to leave the relationship. Following this, Barbara vowed to not only keep herself out of violent relationships, but to help other women as well. She wants women to know their worth and that they are more than their partner. Barbara has teamed up with organizations like The Bella Foundation to actively commit to ending the cycle of domestic violence.
Latonya Gaston
LaTonya Gaston is an author who started writing after spending time with her sister, who has had a brain tumor for 25 years. It was the middle of fall, and LaTonya was watching her sister, and when they were together, would ask questions to keep her mind and motor skills sharp. She asked a specific life experience question that led to her first book. The question was: “It was almost Christmas time and you do not have a job, but you have six children which are all named after Christmas. What are you going to do about paying your bills and buying gifts?” Together, they came up with an interesting story, when LaTonya’s sister dared her to write a book saying “You are not going to write a book” to which she responded, “Yes, I am.” Thus her first book, “Ring Bells of Joy:,
It’s Christmas Time Let it Ring” was written. As a teacher, LaTonya is always telling her students to be aware of the talents they have and how they can be used to motivate or inspire someone. She also feels that everyone has a talent or dream that can be developed with the help others and your faith to achieve the dream.
Sharifa Raouf
Sharifa Raouf is living the American Dream. She grew up in Afghanistan and left due to the Russian invasion. She traveled through Europe for 3 years and settled temporarily in Frankfurt, Germany. It was there that she decided to pursue her childhood dream of becoming a fashion designer, by studying and working for designers. In the early 1980s, Sharifa and her family emigrated to the United States, moving to Denver, Colorado. She started as an assistant designer with Anne Barge, designing custom garments. When she and her husband moved to California in 1985, along with two young children, Sharifa enrolled in Diablo Valley College to earn her degree in Fashion Design, which she did in 1989.
She continued her education with classes at FIDM. Between contacts and her resume, Sharifa became the designer for the California Miss USA beauty pageant, where she created custom garments for the contestants, which continued until 2006. In 2006, upon leaving the Miss USA Pageant system, Sharifa created her own design house, The House of Couture in Walnut Creek, California. At The House of Couture she designs and creates beautiful bridal and evening gowns, as well as men’s suits. She also offers sewing classes both in person and virtually. Sharifa is a perfect example of having the dreams and making them a reality.
Cathy Marshall
Cathy Marshall has overcome low self-esteem and abuse throughout her life, until only a few years ago, when through professional counseling, she realized what had led to it. As the second oldest child out of 13, she and her older brother, Fred, were the “adult children” meaning that they were the ones responsible for taking care of the younger siblings when their parents were not home. Cathy learned to put her wants and needs aside to take care of her siblings. As a child, she didn’t understand the dynamics of relationships, and unfortunately ended up accepting emotional and physical abuse in relationships.
She would give her all to close friends and family members, but didn’t receive the same back. Today, Cathy is happy, confident, resilient and courageous. She is a survivor and proud of all she has accomplished. She is a mother of five, entrepreneur, philanthropist, author and registered nurse. Cathy created her “I LOVE ME” inspirational hoodies, to help inspire others to love themselves first and foremost from the inside out, because there is only one you on the planet and you are a masterpiece!
Tiffany Marler
Tiffany Marler was born and raised in Kirkwood, Missouri, a suburb of Saint Louis. When she was 6 years old, her parents divorced, due to a man who entered their lives, and molested and trafficked Tiffany and other children. When she was 10, Tiffany told her parents, but they didn’t know what to do and did what they felt was the right thing at the time. Her father hid her and her older sister, and due to his own issues, prevented her from seeing her mother. According to Tiffany, the sins of the parents can be turned upon the children, which does not always mean actions, but in many cases, it’s what is taught with words and actions. She moved back in with her mother in her junior year of high school when her past caught up with her. After being back for a year, Tiffany was again raped during her senior year.
With no family support, she decided that she needed structure and joined the Navy as the 4th generation to join the military, becoming a Hospital Corpsman. Due to an ice storm, no family was there to watch her graduate boot camp. Over Liberty weekend, Tiffany went out with some of her Navy “brothers,” who raped her in the back of a limousine. The Senior Chief told her to take a shower and not talk about it when she returned to the “ship” or a.k.a. Building 1 on Recruit Training Camp, Great Lakes, Illinois. This incident led her to thinking that women were meant to be used and abused, and that there was nothing she could do about it. Tiffany struggled with alcoholism and prescription drug abuse following multiple injuries and this eventually led to her collapse into more powerful street drugs. In 2000, she met up with her son’s father who abused her domestically, until she said “no more”, when her son was 2 and a half in September 2004. Her son was her saving grace. Tiffany joined counseling and support groups, and had multiple surgeries to repair her medical injuries, including several near death experiences. She stayed clean and sober for 8.5 years until she met someone she had known in high school, who had his eye on her for a while. They married, but he was another abuser and trafficker. Tiffany soon reached a point when she said enough is enough and escaped him in 2015, and securely divorced him in 2017. Since this last experience, Tiffany has been fighting for justice and restoration of the judiciary process, working to eliminate the issues with victim shaming and blaming. She is a voice to end the narrative where traffickers and abusers have a say in the victim experience, but victims do not. Tiffany created her nonprofit, Nomoretears21:4, to be able to have a voice in states where gag orders, along with corruption in all levels of the police and government prevent victims from expressing themselves. She writes poetry and novels, and speaks and advocates for those without a voice. She utilizes the training she received, along with her ability to stay alive during her horrible situations, to help others do the same. As Tiffany states, “This is a Fight for our Freedom from our own families selling us and our loved ones doing this to us. This is what I fight everyday and it is a dangerous Evil we fight!” Tiffany is definitely a survivor and uses her knowledge to help others do the same.
Norma Walker
Norma Walker has put her personal experience to work in her career. As a young adult, she was directly involved with her father’s care when he was having kidney issues and required dialysis on a regular basis. She would bring him to the facility and put him on dialysis prior to his kidney transplant. Using this experience, Norma started working in a nursing home as a Certified Resident Assistant and Certified Dietary Aid. Today, she serves as a dietary aid for an assisted living facility where she is directly involved in preparing resident meals, serving the residents, reminding residents to take their medications and trains new assistants. Through her personal experience, Norma guides the new assistants in their careers and shows that it is a rewarding job.
Tracy Burch
Tracy Burch was raised in Detroit, the heart of Motown. From a young age, she was taught to be positive in everything she attempted and not to let anything or anyone interfere with her success, regardless of the challenges or obstacles. This education from her mother was brought home, when in college, Tracy was in a serious car accident that required a neck fusion to prevent paralysis. Unfortunately the accident forced her to drop out of school as she needed to take time to heal from both the accident and surgery.
When she was healed,Tracy put her education back as a priority and went back to school for social work to counsel youth as she wanted to utilize her personal experiences as a teenage victim of bullying to guide others in the right direction and away from gang violence and drugs. Although finances blocked her from pursuing this dream, she decided to go in another direction by becoming a substitute teacher as she had the credits. Tracy is currently laid off from teaching due to the pandemic and hopes it will end soon. She still hopes to work on her social work degree as she feels that you should never give up on your dreams. Tracy writes inspirational books to help others by providing guidance. According to her, if you put in the work and make things happen by maintaining a positive attitude, even in the midst of hardships, you will triumph.
Sakimah Coleman
Sakimah Coleman was a normal young woman in her early 20s and attending nursing school when her life changed completely. School became too difficult to manage. She started trusting no one and believed that the government and her family were conspiring against her. She thought that the government had planted cameras and listening devices all over her home and tracking devices in her tooth fillings while at the dentist so they could track her wherever she went. Sakimah was sure that her family was sending information about her to the government as well. She progressed so far that she was forced to drop out of nursing school and put her life on hold. When she was finally diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia, Sakimah found out she was pregnant with her second child and was already the mother of a six year old daughter.
Her boyfriend was concerned about her, and asked if she was sure if she wanted to bring a new baby into the situation, but she was sure she wanted to. However, when he offered to bring food over for her to satisfy any pregnancy cravings, she would turn it down as she was concerned about being poisoned. She was not on any medications during the pregnancy as they were not sure what the meds might do to her unborn baby. Soon after their daughter was born, she was officially diagnosed with a mental illness called Delusional Disorder, but that diagnosis was soon after changed to Paranoid Schizophrenia by a different doctor who delved deeper into her thoughts and behaviors. Sakimah started attending weekly group therapy and tried many different medications. She finally found one she could take without making her feel like a zombie. This one was called Invega Sustenna. With two young children and a boyfriend, later turned husband, to take care of, she needed a medication that would allow her to function normally. After a few months on the medication, Sakimah started to feel like her old self and her mind started to come back. Following years of staying inside due to her illness, she was ready to take her life back. While she wanted to go back for her nursing degree, her husband felt she should take it slow and start with a nurse’s aide program to be sure she could handle it again. She did and soon earned her nurse-aid certification. Following this, Sakimah took the prerequisites needed and was accepted into a nursing program. She feels like she is finally where she wants to be with her life and is moving forward with her dream of becoming a nurse. Sakimah has also written a book about her story and her experiences of living with mental illness.
Jacqueline Gates
Jacqueline Gates is the epitome of power and resilience. When she was 21, she gave birth to her daughter, Joelle Rosebush, but within six months suffered a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized. Unfortunately she suffered many more breakdowns over the years, but kept going with the support of her family. In 1987, Jacqueline’s world was thrown into chaos when her daughter was struck by a car and left in a persistent-vegetative-state for 18 months. The fight to remove her from life support has set precedence for future similar cases. Jacqueline journaled for 20 years and wrote poetry to release her emotions and recently published her book,
“Joelle’s Cry for Justice” to help others find the positive side of grief. In 2012, she attended a conference at the Day at the Capital event in Oklahoma where she spoke in front of 500 people, including representative from NAMI and local mental health groups, telling her story. In 2015, Jacqueline was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, and has since moved into remission. Her incredible story of survival proves that no matter what you are facing, if you take care of yourself, mind, body and spirit and develop a close support system, you can overcome anything and know that you are not alone in anything you are experiencing.
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