The mission of Women's Rural Advocacy Programs (WRAP) is to alleviate the problem of domestic violence in the communities of southwest Minnesota.

      WRAP is a grassroots, non-profit, collectively structured organization comprised of WRAP - Lincoln County (also serving Murray County), WRAP - Lyon County, WRAP - Redwood County, and WRAP - Yellow Medicine County. The collective is based on equality, honesty, and an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect. Its structure is neither hierarchical nor bureaucratic. The group as a whole shares decision-making and responsibilities.

      WRAP is dedicated to providing services for women and their children victimized by domestic violence. We are committed to bringing women's strengths together in creating empowerment where domestic violence exists, to help protect victims from further violence, and to educate communities and systems about the reality of violence in the home. The ultimate goal is to assist communities in planning and organizing to end domestic violence. It is the mission of WRAP to work for the major societal changes necessary to eliminate both personal and societal violence against all women and their children.

      WRAP believes violence against women and children is a learned behavior and results from the use of force or threat involving emotional, physical, sexual, economic, and other aspects of life in order to maintain power and control over another person in intimate relationships. This includes societal abuses of power and domination in the forms of sexism, racism, homophobia, classism, anti-Semitism, able-bodyism, ageism, and other oppressions. WRAP recognizes that the abuses of power in society fosters battering by perpetrating conditions which condone violence against women and children.

Our purposes are:

1. securing and organizing the existing talents and energies of persons in Lincoln, Lyon, Murray, Redwood, and Yellow Medicine Counties who are concerned for battered women and their children affected by domestic violence;

2. acting in conjunction with feminist philosophy and mission statements, as advocates for consciousness-raising and social change, modeling the operation of a feminist organization;

3. establishing and maintaining support services for battered women, and developing and maintaining close working relationships with health, social service, law enforcement, and legal systems providers.