A Home for Ohana
- Kate Hagan
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
One class can change a life. Continued training can help save one.
Ohana Self-Defense provides free, empowerment-based self-defense and violence-prevention training for women and girls ages 10 and older throughout Southwest Washington and the Portland metropolitan area.
Founded by survivors and led entirely by women volunteers, Ohana teaches participants to recognize danger, trust their instincts, establish boundaries, use their voices, de-escalate threatening situations, escape common attacks, and fight their way to safety when necessary.
But lifesaving skills cannot be treated as a one-time lesson.
Under extreme stress, people may freeze or struggle to recall what they have learned. Continued practice turns training into reflex—so when fear takes over and lives are on the line, the body knows how to respond.
That is why Ohana needs a permanent home.
The Barrier We Face
Right now, Ohana relies on borrowed facilities. Without a dedicated training space, we are limited to approximately one course each month and must rotate among our adult and youth programs.
Women may wait weeks or months for an available class. Graduates who want to strengthen or refresh their skills have no consistent place to return. Youth programming cannot grow without reducing opportunities for adult participants—and adult programming cannot expand without limiting what we offer girls.
The need is greater than the space available to meet it.
For a potentially lifesaving skill, one opportunity is not enough.
What Ohana Teaches
Our practical, trauma-informed classes include:
Situational awareness and recognizing warning signs
Intuition, bias, and how offenders test boundaries and select targets
Boundary setting and verbal defense
De-escalation and strategies for getting to safety
Defenses against common grabs, holds, strangulation, and ground attacks
Repeated practice that builds confidence and automatic response skills
Our adult classes welcome all women—survivors and allies alike. No participant is ever required to disclose her history. Every woman is met where she is in a supportive environment centered on dignity, choice, belonging, and respect.
Our youth programs begin violence prevention early. Girls learn to identify unsafe behavior, establish healthy boundaries, trust their instincts, seek help, support one another, and understand that their bodies and voices belong to them.
Every class is free, with priority given to people and communities disproportionately affected by violence and barriers to traditional training.
What a Forever Home Would Make Possible
A dedicated gym and training center would allow Ohana to:
Offer multiple adult and youth courses each month
Give graduates a place to return for continued practice
Provide regular skill-refresher and conditioning sessions
Reduce waiting times between courses
Expand violence-prevention programs for girls
Train and support additional women instructors
Provide a stable, trauma-informed environment designed for our participants
Deepen partnerships with schools, survivor-serving organizations, employers, and community groups
Reach more women and girls without ever charging them for training
A permanent home would transform Ohana from a traveling monthly program into an enduring community resource.
Why This Belongs to All of Us
Nearly half of women in the United States have experienced contact sexual violence during their lifetime. More than one in five have experienced completed or attempted rape. Among female rape survivors, almost half were first raped before turning 18.
Behind every statistic is someone’s mother, daughter, sister, partner, colleague, neighbor, or friend.
Gender-based violence is not simply a women’s issue. Its effects ripple through families, schools, workplaces, healthcare systems, and entire communities.
Preventing it belongs to all of us.
When women and girls are safer, families are stronger, workplaces are healthier, survivors are better supported, and young people are better prepared to recognize and respond to unsafe behavior.
More Than a Building
Ohana’s forever home would be a place where a survivor can reconnect with her strength.
A place where a girl learns that her instincts matter, her boundaries deserve respect, and her voice has power.
A place where a woman can return until knowledge becomes confidence, practice becomes reflex, and she no longer has to wonder whether she will remember what to do.
Whether you give $25, $100, $1,000, or make a transformational investment, you become part of the community building this home.
You are helping ensure that cost never determines who gets to learn how to protect herself. You are helping create a safer future for someone you love—even if you never know her name.
Please give now and help us open the doors to Ohana’s forever home.
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