The Atlanta Lesbian Health Initiative is pleased to present its December 2008 Real Woman, Imani Evans-a dedicated survivor-thriver who for more than 20 years has been telling women that "God does not intend for us to suffer," and that women can "turn pain into purpose."
She currently serves as executive director of the Little 5 Points Community Center, but she is best known as founder and executive director of Women Healing Women, Inc., a nonprofit organization for women survivors of sexual and domestic violence. In September of this year Zami honored Imani's work with a 2008 Community Activist award.
After spending her formative years in New Jersey and New York, she came to Atlanta in 1996, inspired, she says, by her mentor Pamela Smith Chambers, a graduate of Clark Atlanta University. Imani followed her footsteps, achieving a masters degree in counseling psychology. She reported that her experience at a historically black college transformed her, freeing her to become an artist of the spoken word.
Her experience in Atlanta also freed her to come out as a lesbian, having created enough geographic and emotional distance to put her past as a rape and sexual molestation survivor-to-thriver in perspective.
Imani has been working to heal herself and others for more than 20 years. In 2004 she founded Women Healing Women, Inc., to address the long-term effects of violence against women. Imani described her approach to healing women by defining stages through which women who have experienced sexual and domestic violence go. During the initial crisis, women are victims of violence. As they get the help they need immediately following the crisis they become survivors. Those who continue their journey become warriors to heal their spirits, until they transcend their experiences and become thrivers. And, of course, Imani stressed, "It's always a journey."
According to CDC statistics, 10.6% of women experience sexual violence at some time in their lives, and 20 to 25% of women in college report an attempted or completed rape in college. However, the Department of Justice reports that rape is one of the most underreported crimes, and Imani suspects the actual numbers may be much higher. In her work with women, Imani has observed that women don't always link their past experiences to barriers to growth that they often encounter many years later. That is why in her work she focuses on the empowerment of all women, whether or not she is working directly with survivor-thrivers.
Imani is proud to claim a family of choice as well as a family of origin. She lives with Daphne Donnelly, her partner of four years, in East Point. She has a brother and sister-in-law, and her mother will be joining her in Atlanta soon. Imani also claims as family three long-time friends-her "big sister," Nana Agyeiwaah Anan, Kathy Williams, and Gail McDaniel.
In closing, Real Woman features Imani's answers to nine questions adapted from the well-known Proust Questionnaire:
What is your idea of happiness? The freedom to be me
What quality do you most admire in a person? Authenticity, or as they say in Newark, "Keep it real."
Who are your heroes in real life? My mother, Oprah, Reverend Maressa Tendermon, Reverend Kathy Martin, Mary Anne Adams, Betty Couvertier, and other women in her community
What is it that you most dislike? Intolerance and the degradation of women
What natural gift would you most like to possess? I like being who I am.
What is your favorite occupation? Any social justice work that seeks to authentically empower disenfranchised people
What is your favorite exercise? The Precor elliptical machine
What is your favorite color? Red
How would you like your tombstone to read? She Inspired Women
