A husband and wife team are on a mission to break the generational cycle of domestic violence.
In 2019, Taimalelagi Mataio (Matt) Faafetai Brown and his wife, Sarah, founded their campaign She Is Not Your Rehab to start an open dialogue about domestic violence. This year, the couple launched the free mental health program innerBoy.
The program — which is geared toward men who have suffered from and still perpetuate domestic violence — was born out of a glaring lack of free anger management and therapy resources online.
"Everything online was inaccessible. … The courses online were costly, white-washed, or outdated,” Matt told RNZ. “It was a huge gap in our mental health system.”
Although the 30-day program is free, Matt said that innerBoy is meant to be “a useful tool to go alongside men's healing journey” and not an outright replacement for therapy.
“It is a digital sanctuary for men, providing a safe space where they can reclaim their identities and break free from the chains of intergenerational trauma,” Matt explained.
For Matt, the issue of domestic violence is incredibly personal. In a 2019 TED Talk, the New Zealand-based communicator touched on his experiences as a survivor of family violence and sexual assault.
“If I could summarize in one word what my childhood felt like growing up, I would use the word ‘unsafe,’” Matt said.
For Matt and Sarah Brown, She Is Not Your Rehab and innerBoy are not just about creating safe spaces for domestic violence survivors, but also encouraging them to heal and move forward.
“What happened to you in your childhood isn’t your fault, but your healing is now your responsibility,” Sarah said in an interview with Te Karere TVNZ.
A version of this article originally appeared in the 2024 Gender Edition of the Goodnewspaper.
Header image via SHVETS production
