Empowering Communities Through Emotional Education

Founded by Francesca Raoelison, a Brown University alumna, Omena U.S. is driven by the mission to break the cycle of emotional abuse and enhance mental health through innovative social-emotional learning. With a deep-rooted passion for creating safer, more supportive environments, our programs reach out to schools, universities, and communities across the United States.

It’s estimated by the WHO that up to 1 billion children worldwide have suffered in the last year from emotional abuse: 1 billion children most likely with trauma, low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, and isolation.

Emotional abuse is characterized by name calling, yelling, intimidating, controlling, gaslighting (making the victim doubt his or her reality through manipulation), using the silent treatment to punish the victim or invalidate their emotions, threats, isolating the victim from their community, and manipulating (Bancroft, 2002).

Emotional abuse starts in the household, often having a spillover effect in all the other relationships in our lives and it is passed on from generation to generation.

Emotional abuse is a global crisis. Without the proper resources to prevent abuse there is deep economic impact. In the U.S alone, the CDC estimates the cost of emotional abuse to be $124 billion. Expenses like hospital cost, criminal justice costs and productivity losses means that emotional abuse affects even more than just its direct victims.