Survivor
WELLNESS
Engage, Empower, and Heal
Founded in 2016 by attorney Rachel Monaco-Wilcox, LOTUS Legal Clinic is a Milwaukee-based nonprofit organization whose mission of investing in survivors through an innovative blend of civil legal services, victims’ rights representation, and therapeutic art programming is grounded in the belief that everyone, regardless of income, gender identity, sexual orientation, or immigration status, has a right to dignity, safety, and a pathway to justice that is both healing and equitable.
Valuing a wholistic approach to survivor wellness, LOTUS has developed two sister art education programs, Untold Stories and Rise & Thrive, that aim to engage, empower, and heal survivors through the practice of literary art (poetry and creative non-fiction) and through unique collaborations with local artists working in the community. LOTUS's Therapeutic Art Program also assists with advocacy writing and victim impact statements, as well as helping survivors who are interested in public speaking opportunities.
Untold Stories
Untold Stories is a humanities-based, trauma-informed educational program that pairs the creative writing of survivors with visual art responses by University student-artists at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. The literary art—poems and creative non-fiction—is created and shaped in LOTUS’ own writing workshops designed for survivors that focus on the untold stories of sexual trauma and its aftermath. The pairings of survivor-writings and response artworks are shared widely within the community through LOTUS-organized poetry readings, art exhibitions, a community showcase, and a literary magazine.
Untold Stories helps survivors collaborate and generate literary and visual art that provides an opportunity for creative expression, personal healing, and genuine community. It stands for the belief that personal transformation, empathic connection, and catharsis through art are a necessary part of the healing process.
Interested in signing up for a workshop?
Rise & Thrive
The Rise & Thrive program invites six Untold Stories alums back to reflect and write poetry about their resilience, what gives them joy, and in what ways, big or small, they are thriving in their life, and to collaborate with local professional artists who create their own unique art in response to and inspired by the survivor writings.
In 2024 LOTUS collaborated with Milwaukee singer/songwriter Chris Porterfield, who worked with the writers to create original music inspired by and in response to the poems created in the workshop. The poetry and original songs will be debuted at the Rise & Thrive Concert Fundraiser at the Cooperage on September 12th.
Click below to register for this impactful, community-building concert event!
