Charity Work
Hargitay is founder and president of the Joyful Heart Foundation, an organization that was set up in 2004 to provide support to survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse. According to Hargitay, she was inspired by an encounter with a school of dolphins that surrounded her while she was swimming off the coast of Hawaii at the age of 15. The encounter, which had ignited profound spiritual feelings within her, was one that Hargitay hoped to share with others. As of November 2010, the Joyful Heart Foundation has sent over 5,000 women and children on therapeutic programs in New York, Los Angeles and Hawaii, which combine yoga, meditation, massage, maintaining journals and swimming with dolphins. According to Hargitay, "I started getting fan mail from survivors who felt a connection to Olivia. In many of these letters, people would disclose their personal stories of abuse — some for the very first time. I remember getting the sense that many were living in isolation with so much shame, but the shame belonged to the perpetrators. I wanted to help find a way to help people reclaim their lives and live them with a renewed sense of possibility and hope. And that's what we work to do every day at Joyful Heart." According to Hargitay, the Foundation has raised $20 million and helped approximately 5,000 survivors as of April 2011. Reference to the Joyful Heart Foundation was worked into episodes of Special Victims Unit, via a necklace containing two pendants representing the Foundation that Hargitay's character began wearing in the show's 13th season.
Hargitay appeared in the 17th season of NBC's "The More You Know" public service announcement in 2006, and again in the spring of 2009. She is an honorary board member director of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation.
On September 27, 2011, Hargitay donated $100,000 to her alma mater, the UCLA School of Theater Film and Television for scholarship.
In 2012 Hargitay campaigned for the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).
Read more about this topic: Mariska Hargitay
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