About | Survivor Stories

Survivor Stories

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About the Show

Join Joyful Heart Founder, Mariska Hargitay, and host Debbie Millman in Survivor Stories: Pathways to Hope, Healing and Action. Millman, a survivor and Joyful Heart Foundation board member, will introduce you to remarkable individuals who experienced trauma yet channeled it into changing laws and minds. Each episode features powerful personal stories and insights from experts tackling these critical issues.

Founded by Mariska Hargitay, the Joyful Heart Foundation's mission is to transform society's response to sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse.

Meet our Hosts

Mariska Hargitay

Emmy-award winning actress Mariska Hargitay plays Captain Olivia Benson on the NBC series Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, where she is also an Executive Producer and Director. Mariska’s role on SVU awakened her to burdens of shame, blame and isolation that survivors of trauma often carry, leading her to create the Joyful Heart Foundation in 2004. Joyful Heart’s mission is to transform society’s response to sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse, support survivors’ healing, and end this violence forever. At the heart of the foundation’s advocacy work is the “End the Backlog” campaign, aimed at eliminating the backlog of hundreds of thousands of untested rape kits in the US, reforming the system that made the backlog possible, and supporting survivors in their pursue of the justice they deserve. She produced I AM EVIDENCE, an HBO documentary film on the topic that premiered in April 2018 and received an Emmy for “Best Documentary” at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards in September 2019. Mariska also co-produced EMANUEL, a documentary about the Charleston church shooting which premiered in June 2019, and MY BEAUTIFUL STUTTER, a documentary about a summer camp for young people who stutter.

Debbie Millman

Debbie is the host of the Webby award-winning podcast Design Matters, one of the first and longest running podcasts in the world and a long-term board member of Joyful Heart Foundation. She is also Chair of the Masters in Branding Program at the School of Visual Arts, Editorial Director of PrintMag.com, and the author of eight books. Debbie is the recipient of a Cooper Hewitt National Design Award, an AIGA Lifetime Achievement award, the OnAir Audio Vanguard award and many others. She is currently a Harvard Business School Executive Fellow.