Dr. Michael Irving

Dr. Michael Irving (http://www.irvingstudios.com/child_abuse_survivor_ monument/mon_about.htm)

Dr. Michael Irving has built a memorial to survivors of abuse. The memorial is ten feet tall and thirty feet wide and cast in the bronze handprints of survivors. On the inside of the memorial there is room for one million handprints on paper.

Dr. Irving has taken many years to build this memorial in hopes that it will have rest as a permanent installation in a place in Canada and the United States.

(http://www.irvingstudios.com/child_abuse _survivor_monument/mon_about.htm)

He sees this memorial as a collective visualization of how we want the world to be for children. Once the memorial is in place, people could come from all over the world to recognize that, as a society, we need to address the fact that there is much work to be done together to create a better world for children.

I was so inspired by his work that I am now collecting handprints for the inside of the memorial. As a survivor of child abuse and cancer, I realized that this memorial has given me a reason to end my silence. My anger has meant pain to me, but it has also meant survival, and before I gave it up I was going to be sure that there was something at least as powerful to replace it on the road to clarity.

I have been collecting handprints now for eighteen months. I ask that people place their hand on a piece of paper, draw an outline of their hand and then write a message of how they want the world to be for children.

Dr. Irving's vision has provided a great deal of healing for me...as through it I have been able to help others.

Today, the memorial sits in front of Dr. Irving's home. We need funding and help to find a permanent home for this work of art. Please go to www.reachingoutamerica.com to see the sculpture.

It is my hope that by putting this out into the Universe that somebody will contact Dr. Irving to help him with his dream.