Hawaiʻi has experienced multiple disasters over the preceding few years. Whether it was a global pandemic or the Maui wildfires, our community has dealt with the increased stress and strain these disasters caused. Unfortunately, we know that these stressors do not impact everyone equally. Research has documented that there is an increase in both the prevalence and severity of domestic violence, specifically targeted at women, after these events. Please join us for a discussion on how disasters, both natural and manmade, impact our ʻohana dealing with domestic violence so that we can better help our community heal.

This discussion is sponsored by Maui College, Honolulu Community College and Kapiʻolani Community College. It is open to all students, faculty, and staff.

This webinar will feature the following speakers:

‘Alani Bagcal

‘Alani Bagcal has proudly served as a community organizer and public policy advocate at the local government level in Honolulu and at nonprofit organizations statewide. She has specialized in promoting greater public awareness about effective civic engagement in legislative processes and educating communities on women and family specific issues. Her political passions include advancing women and families' access to reproductive health care and actively defending the right to bodily autonomy. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues and exacerbates systemic disparities among marginalized communities, she finds her calling to domestic violence work as it is an essential factor in addressing these inequities and achieving bodily autonomy for all. She aims to build strong partnerships in order to identify and steer effective practices to improve gender equity policies, and to support survivors' needs and empowerment in Hawaiʻi. ‘Alani is responsible for working statewide with Hawaiʻi State Coalition Against Domestic Violence member programs and community partners to reduce the disparate systemic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on survivors of domestic violence, their children, and the programs that serve them.

Leslie D. Cabingabang

Leslie D. Cabingabang is a daughter, sister, cousin, friend and mother. She currently serves as the Senior Confidential Advocate with the UH System Confidential Advocacy Program for all Oʻahu campuses. For over twenty years, she has worked with families and individuals experiencing interpersonal violence. She started as an advocate with domestic violence programs at Parents and Children Together. She became a fellow with the Consuelo Foundation and Myron B Thompson School of Social Work Philippines Program working with child survivors of abuse in Zamboanga, Mindanao, Philippines. Leslie then returned to Hawaiʻi as the community educator with the Pilipina Rural Project at the Domestic Violence Action Center. She joined the University in 2009 to begin the PAU (Prevention, Awareness and Understanding) Violence Program at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and started her work as a confidential advocate in higher education. She is also currently working toward her doctoral degree in education administration in higher education at UH Mānoa. Her research goals are to explore counterstories of students who experience interpersonal violence while in college.

Lindsey Drayer

Lindsey Drayer, LMFT, is a therapist and clinical supervisor at the Maui Sexual Assault Center at Child and Family Service. She specializes in working with children and families who have experienced trauma, especially interpersonal trauma such as sexual assault/abuse and intimate partner violence. She has worked in the field of domestic violence and sexual assault since 2001, becoming a therapist in 2016. She was born and raised in Wailuku, Maui and continues to reside and work there.

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