Lisa Marie Moreno, 21, is a strong young woman determined to become a great advocate for women survivors of sexual abuse and, in fact, she has already helped approximately 20 women not to give in to adversity.
While studying at Metropolis Faculty, where she was a cashier, Lisa Marie was abused by a co-worker 10 years older than her.
“That experience really affected me in school; my grades were terrible,” Lisa Marie recalls. “I was a girl and I didn’t know that what was happening was sexual abuse; no one told me that the abuse that man was doing to me was wrong.”
That man intoxicated her with a lot of alcohol “to make her relax” and took advantage of her when she was unconscious.
The abuse began after about four months of knowing him and lasted six months. She was about to turn 18 years old. She felt desperate and began using marijuana.
“He got me drugs, but on two or three occasions I was too intoxicated… He gave me a lot of alcohol… I had never drunk. One night I didn’t even know where I was… I was crying and he was raping me.”
The girl thought that her mother would want to know where she was, and when that guy left her at the door of her house, Lisa Marie was completely drunk.
When the nightmare was over, the girl returned from Northern California to Los Angeles, where she met a good boy who treated her well and told her his story. Her boyfriend took her to the East Los Angeles Women’s Center.
There, at the East Los Angeles Ladies Folks’ Heart, Lisa Marie became a volunteer and understood the gravity of what had happened to her.
He learned that the man’s pattern of perverse behavior is similar to that used by abusers.
He met a promoter of the care center, to whom he unloaded all his tears and pain.
“They told me that what that man had done was not correct. Generation sexual abuse,” he said. “Here I felt true love.”
During three years of volunteering at the women’s help center, Lisa Marie was trained to assist other women.
“For a long time, I felt like I had the title of victim,” she said. “But now I no longer feel alone. I am a warrior woman and yes, I am invincible…I am happy to celebrate with many women who are part of my family.”
Lisa Marie assures that the abuse suffered does not define her.
“It defines me what I want to be; thinking that there is nothing that can stop me from being a great woman,” she emphasizes.
For now, she studies at the Colegio del Este de Los Angeles (ELAC), where she guides and prevents sexual abuse in other students. He has planned to transfer to UCLA to study law and communication.
Lisa Marie has received intense training to be a volunteer and crisis counselor, to be aware of the trauma caused by sexual abuse, how to assist other women, listen to them and answer the crisis line that the East Los Angeles Women’s Center has open, 24 hours a day, seven days a week: CRISIS HOTLINE (800) 585-6231
The girl shares that the courage she has acquired after the trauma she experienced has been obtained by the love she has received from other women in the East Los Angeles Ladies folks’s Heart.
“When everything happened to me, I lived with so much courage, and when I felt the love here, at the Women’s Center, that was when they gave me the love that I give to women, even older than me,” she said. “I don’t look back anymore because that’s not going to do me any good,” he analyzes.
“What I can do is continue to give the love and support that I received,” he adds. “So, I want to be a voice for women who are not yet ready to say ‘this happened to me.’
At her side, Alejandra Aguilar Avelino, development manager of the East Los Angeles Women’s Center, chimes in to congratulate Lisa Marie.
“What she [Lisa Marie] He says, I had never put it into words. It is exciting to listen to her because what she says is what keeps us from letting ourselves fall, because it is that strength that makes her invincible.
Hence the “Invincible” campaign, because they see the transformation of a person when they are so fallen, on the ground and when they learn their rights they heal.
“It’s like something magical. You transform and you don’t turn back,” emphasizes Alejandra Aguilar Avelino. “When you are in front of another survivor, it is like something invisible that connects you with her and you stand up, it connects you with the feeling, the story, the love, the desire to live and to be number one in everything.”
In celebration of its 50th anniversary of founding, the East Los Angeles Ladies Folks’s Heart (ELAWC) commemorated Sexual Assault Awareness Month, highlighting its impactful work and the growth of its “Invincible” campaign, which features members of its non-public, women and men, as symbols of resilience.
During the event held at the ELAWC facilities, at 1431 S Atlantic Blvd, Los Angeles, tribute was paid to long-time volunteer María Elena Foster, who was awarded the Golden Hoops Award.
“Sexual assault occurs in all communities and it is necessary to overcome fear to report the problem,” declared María Elena Foster, who worked as a patrol officer for 20 years in the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), participating in the specialized investigation of domestic violence and sexual assault.
“It wasn’t so much because I had chosen that branch of justice, but rather that at the beginning of 1980 women began to join the LAPD, and when there were those types of cases they sent us; they said “you are a woman and you can talk to them.”
However, she did not develop a full awareness of the issue until 2003 when – after having spent several years as a crisis counselor in the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office – she was so impressed by the work of the women at ELAWC that she joined the group.
Initially she was a “victim representative”, although in reality her role was to intervene in crisis matters: homicides, sexual assault, child abuse, car accidents, any tragedy.
After quitting her job, María Elena Foster put her experience at the service of others, which, in 23 years – from 2009 to 2026 – has made her a volunteer at ELAWC, where she is also an instructor in all the cases that come to the center.
“Rape and child abuse are the hardest cases I have ever seen,” she said. “The reason is that the perpetrator is almost always someone known, be it the mother, father, uncles, grandparents, etc.”
A disturbing case
She claims that it is a myth that abusers are strangers.
“The reality is that it is a person who has access to that boy or girl, who the parents trust when they approach their children,” he said.
The former domestic violence and sexual assault detective recalled the case of a girl whom a neighbor had convinced her to give “a special massage.”
Afterwards, the girl began to inappropriately touch her own father, who jumped in surprise. He calls his wife and they discover the abuse and report it to the police.
At that moment the man discovered the abuse to which his four-year-old daughter had been subjected.
“The neighbor had already trained the girl, who testified before a judge and said – in her innocence – that the neighbor asked her to touch him and as a reward he was going to give her a lollipop… That case still makes me shake. It was heartbreaking to learn about the case of that innocent girl.”
The attacker was sentenced to life in prison.
“Invincible” women campaign
The East Los Angeles Women’s Center (ELAWC) recently launched the “Invincible Day: A Day of Strength, A Day for Survivors” campaign, marking the beginning of Sexual Assault Awareness Month in Los Angeles County.
At a time when conversations about sexual violence remain essential, numerous women participating in “Invincible Day” called on the community to break the silence and stand alongside survivors.
To commemorate this occasion, ELAWC hosted a “Night of Expression/Open Mic,” where survivors, allies, and community members shared personal stories, poetry, and messages of solidarity.
“My name is freedom”
“You are not what they did to us. We are force in motion, healing that is sometimes seen as happiness, courage, sadness, different found emotions,” expressed the writer Julia Rojas, in a poetic way. “So, that’s healing in motion. And thank you for being here and not silencing the voice we have.”
His poem is titled: “You have no right to name me.”
“Leaving was never easy. My dignity had been silent for too long buried under your screams, your chaos, disguised as love, I refused to lose myself and forgive myself in your arguments.
I walked away from the storm you built inside our home. The home I once thought was safe. Peace became my choice, not your poison. I stopped confusing your addictive attachment with affection. That was never love.
I learned to listen with my eyes, to see with my ears, to notice how the truth is hidden in what we want to look at, but we listen to it, I saw how your presence became an open wound, an invitation to my own contempt.
I heard what the silence screamed in your hands. Your damn hands were not kind to my body. Your words erased my courage, but I left. Yes I left. My absence became a lesson for you. You will learn to respect me not for my forgiveness, but for my distance. You no longer have the right to define my value. My healing now speaks in the present tense. I am the voice that survived your storm, I am rebuilding from silence, from absence.
My name is not a victim, my name is freedom, my body, my love, my life belongs to me.”
