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For many victims of domestic violence, escaping their abusers can feel almost impossible, while some never get the chance.

But 125 women and domestic violence survivors are now ready and equipped to avoid abusive partners and help other women escape domestic violence. On Thursday, they graduated from the Reducing Intimate Partner Violence through Micro Enterprise Development Community Project. The project, which was launched in July, assisted women from communities that have zones of special operations in the Corporate Area and Westmoreland, as well as parts of St Thomas.

One such survivor is Lisa*, who found herself in a long-term abusive relationship at just age 15. The 29-year-old told THE WEEKEND STAR that after her mother's death in 2009 she had no one to turn to, and started dating her then 22-year-old boyfriend. He almost killed her. He first hit her when she was 16, knocking her consciousness.

"Mi wah fight but mi cah manage. Weh mi a guh duh? Mi just affi bare it. At the time, mi did a work pan the side but mi couldn't mek him know. Mi afi hide it. Feel like mi did wah run weh but then again, if mi run weh, weh mi a guh guh?" Lisa said. She said that she was motivated to escape one Christmas when relatives visited Jamaica.

"Normally, when them come from foreign, mi would a guh visit them [but] mi realise the Christmas mi cah guh because him swell up mi eye and mi cah face dem," she said.

"Di day [I escaped] mi get up and mi tell him seh mi a guh wash 'round a mi father because mi did build back a relationship with mi father. Mi guh wash round a mi father and mi neva guh back," she said. Lisa said that she still struggles to trust and maintain relationships because of the trauma.

"Mi nuh like man; period. Mi just think seh everyone a dem a di same thing from mi past," Lisa said. Nonetheless, the single mother of two hopes to one day find love with a non-abusive partner.

"Mi nah rush it, mi a tek mi time cah mi nuh wah mek the same mistake twice. Mi paranoid. If yuh gi mi a little red flag, mi gone," said Lisa. She also advised women to leave the moment their partners try to abuse them in any way.

Karen*, 34, also endured a long-term abusive relationship which lasted for 11 years.

"He used to stalk me. At one point, he even threw a stone in my workplace," she said. "He would start to accuse me of things I did not know about and then he started to get abusive." Karen was only 21 when her then 48-year-old partner started to abuse her. He hit her anytime she tried to speak up for herself. Literally fighting back, she put him in the hospital.

"So at that point now, whenever him come at me, him want to have a weapon and that was the time I said 'Well this is it because is either him a guh kill me or me a guh kill him'," she said.

Lisa said that one thing she learned in the programme is that instead of arguments, "you afi have understanding". "There is not 'physical' nothing, yuh afi have understanding. If it's not working, yuh part," she added.

*Names changed to protect identities