October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. You can wear purple ribbons to educate yourself and others about the horrors of inter-personal violence. But if you know a victim of domestic violence--and they're all around us--do you know how to help them share their story and get help?

Send them to Violence UnSilenced, a relatively new and somewhat unconventional website that gives excruciating voice to the survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.

It's a simple thing you can do, but sometimes the simple things are the most profound.

Started by a Wisconsin woman, the website is a flood of sad and often brutal stories that oddly inspires as it educates. Tens of thousands of people each month read the stories of violence survived that Maggie Ginsberg-Schutz receives and posts weekly. Even if the authors are not yet able to extricate themselves completely from the violence that surrounds them, the readers are listening to the stories of survivors, not victims. It takes shocking courage and bravery to give voice to previous shame and silence, and it's in that awakening where the power lies.

Help a victim give voice to her anguish, guide her to appropriate help and elevate her to survivor - make it your mission next month. Even if you think you know no one who is affected, look around. I bet you'll find someone.

A good friend of eight years casually informed me over lunch one day how she'd gotten a permanent bump on her elbow: it was courtesy of her father after he'd thrown her into a plate glass window when she was in junior high school. She told me how he regularly threw her into brick walls, and down stairs. He kicked, punched, slapped, humiliated - even stuck safety pins into her and her brother's skin. This, from a father who had always been portrayed as a paragon of virtue and heroism. This, from a simple lunch discussion on a child abuse story in the news and a direct question from me. She eventually started therapy and is healing, even if in spurts and starts.

You see, domestic violence victims - and the larger class of violence and sexual assault victims - are all around you. They're in your workplace, at your church or temple, in your classroom, on your community web boards, on airplanes, next to you at lunch counters and in public restrooms, next door, maybe even in your own house. Victims of violence in all its forms - physical, mental, emotional, sexual, spiritual, inside and outside the home - are everywhere. You just have to open your eyes and ears and look and listen.

You just have to look and ask. It's simple, but it can be profound.