Maia has requested the CNMI government’s help to establish one in her open letter to Gov. Benigno R. Fitial, the Legislature and Tinian Mayor Ramon M. Dela Cruz, which appeared in the Variety’s letters to the editor section on May 17.
Maia told Variety that there’s no current shelter on Tinian where abused women and their children can be safe from harm and “learn how to escape the horrific cycle of violence that keeps them living in fear and with no hope for their future.”
In an e-mail interview, Maia said she has been told by local authorities that there are several reported cases of abused women every month on Tinian.
Maia is currently running the Helping-Hands Books & Donation Center, which she started on Tinian several years ago. It provides free clothing, household goods and books to all.
She said the plan and program for the shelter, which she calls “My Sisters’ Keeper,” is ready to be implemented, with land and a building shell donated by a local family.
However, despite showing her project’s proposed plans to the previous administration on Tinian and to the new mayor, she said she “never got any response at all.”
The planned shelter for abused women will not duplicate any existing program of the government, she said, and will go far beyond the system in place now, providing safe housing for six weeks, for both single women and those with children.
But without any support from the local government for the project, “it would not be possible to obtain assistance from the business sector and/or the federal government,” she added.
