(Seguin) – The new director of the family violence shelter says she hopes to lean on both her professional and personal experience when working to keep families safe.
Filling the new lead role as executive director for Thriving Hearts Crisis Center, formerly known as the Guadalupe Valley Family Violence Shelter, is Manijeh Huereca.
For years, Huereca has focused her career on serving others whether it was protecting children as a social worker or working to end homelessness. Before making the move to Thriving Hearts here in Seguin, Huereca served the refugee department as the senior director of special programs for Catholic Charities.
The role of protecting victims of domestic violence, however, might be the most personal for the new director.
“Working in domestic violence is something that I kind of never thought that I would do and in my early 20s, I was actually living in a shelter with my infant daughter at the time. She just turned 18. This was back in 2006 and so I always thought that growing up in a domestic violence household and then having those abusive relationships after that — equipped me to work with children who had been abused. A lot of people when I worked in child welfare were like ‘I don’t know how you did this’ and for some reason, I always just kind of thought God has put me in places where I could help people who experienced something similar to me and when I saw this posting, it was kind of that same full circle moment where I felt like maybe it’s time that I can do this and use my experience and life experience coupled with my professional experience to really make this a better place for this community,” said Huereca.
Nonetheless, she says she is ready for the challenge and has every expectation to do her best in improving the lives of women and children.
“I’m very passionate about helping people who are experiencing probably one of the most traumatic events of their lives and showing them that there is a way forward through that and it seems like there is not right now but there is hope on the other side of that and you can really set your sights, set your goals on whatever you want that to be and accomplish them,” said Huereca.
Huereca says the last two months in the new position have already challenged her to think beyond the next year.
She says from the moment she walked into the door, those gears of what she wanted to accomplish were already turning.
“To start, we serve several counties. I really want to be a presence in each of those counties. I want to make sure my staff are physically present in those counties and available to all the clients in those counties who need us and that also means working with those local law enforcement in Gonzales, Karnes and Wilson as well as Guadalupe. In addition to that, we are already growing. I’m hiring multiple staff positions right now. I’m in full swing with applying for new grants and securing new funding sources and all of that to lead up to where I think we are headed as an organization and that is to find and build a space that does the community justice. Nobody wants to be in a shelter but if we can make that the most peaceful transition in a traumatic situation then that is my goal. I want us to have a building with multiple units to where we can really meet the needs of all the survivors in this community,” said Huereca.
Huereca says she looks forward to better connecting with the community so that everyone becomes familiar with those future ideas. If you or someone you know is in crisis, contact the 24-hour confidential hotline at 1-800-834-2033.