HAVOCA 20th Anniversary
HAVOCA has now been online for nearly 20 years!!
Our Trustee, Jamie Harms, started HAVOCA back in July 2001 as a way to provide support to other survivors of child abuse. Initially conceived as a portal for survivors to find services and information that didn’t alienate them, the website was a natural one stop shop to provide contact details. As the initial emails started to flood in, it became very apparent that there was a great need for more help. The website grew from just a few contact pages into a depository for information and links to resources.
From here spawned a forum that allowed survivors to meet online and provide support to each other. The free software that was being used at the time didn’t support the number of hits that were received and soon HAVOCA’s online presence became laggy and temperamental.
The decision was taken to go ‘professional’ and pay for a hosting service that permitted a much bigger web presence. This enabled lots of services like maps, forums and much better links for the resources page.
This was fantastic for a few years but as the readership grew we need to push even further. We now have security to prevent spam and protect against unhealthy bots. Our online forms, surveys, maps, store and forums are leading the field of services for survivors of abuse.
As a self-funded, voluntary organisation (that is not-for-profit) we rely on donations and contributions from many people. Those that cant donate money, donate time and vice versa. Many people contribute both. We couldn’t have done this without the guidance and direction of many people along the way. So everyone who has helped, thank you, we salute you all!
Happy 20th Birthday Havoca! Well done Jamie and Havocans. 🎈
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