Gun Violence Survivor's Educational Mission
Kristina Anderson unfortunately is a busy woman. She runs the Koshka Foundation for Safe Schools, a one-woman organization that holds safety workshops for schools, law enforcement groups and businesses on gun violence. She launched it after surviving the Virginia Tech shooting that killed 32 people in 2007. The training, which is primarily funded by corporations, is focused on Kristina’s perspective as a survivor and how first responders should treat survivors on the scene, warning signs to look for in someone potentially planning an attack, and how schools and workplaces can prepare for an attack.
Kristina, who’s one of the founders of LiveSafe, an Arlington tech company that developed a mobile crime reporting app, says the challenge is that most organizations don’t think it will happen to them. While school attacks get lots of media attention, gun violence is more common in the workplace, especially for women. Kristina does 10 to 20 workshops a month and has considered formalizing the training and hiring more people. She’s worked with a few other survivors on the content and is working on a video series. One thing she’ll never do is make the training a for-profit endeavor. The focus on security makes it much more credible as a nonprofit, she adds.
