WAUWATOSA, Wis. — Local organizations are advocating for the most vulnerable of children.

Darkness to Light, a nonprofit that advocates for preventing child sexual abuse, reports that one in 10 children will be sexually abused and 90% of those children will be sexually abused by someone they know.

This is something Wauwatosa resident Amanda Salas knows all too well. She was born in Las Vegas. Her mother was a substance abuser and her father wasn’t around. Salas is one of seven siblings. She said they always had head lice, never had clean clothes, moved frequently and lived in an unsafe environment without access to consistent food.

Salas said her stepfather sexually and physically abused her and her siblings until she was five years old. Her mother then abandoned her children, and they were split up in between different relatives.

Salas then moved to Wisconsin to live with her stepfather’s brother. She said she was sexually and physically abused by him and his wife.

“I remember breaking down in class and telling them what was happening,” said Salas. “I remember being in the office with the police officers and at the police station.”

Salas was then taken into foster care. She moved around to different homes until she aged out at 18 years old.

“Some of my most vivid memories in foster care were the night I was put into foster care,” Salas said. “They put me in a temporary group home. There was no peace.”

She took advantage of advocacy groups like Kids Matter, a Milwaukee based nonprofit that helps children of abuse.

“They helped me become a young, strong adult,” Salas said. “They taught me what your parents normally teach you.”

Executive director of Kids Matter, Susan Conwell, was there when Salas sought help. It makes her proud that she’s now helping others.

“She is the definition of what young people can do to advocate for themselves and to help amend the world, better for other kids,” Conwell said.

Salas graduated from high school and earned herself a college degree. It was not easy she said. Several universities turned her down because she moved so frequently, affecting her high school records. She also began advocacy work herself.

“If I have the opportunity to speak and use my story to help prevent things that happened to me to another kid, I’m going to do it,” said Salas.

Salas said she advocated at the Wisconsin State Capitol and the U.S. Capitol. She took part in The National Foster Youth Institutes Congressional Shadow Day Program and in a Hack-A-Thon in Washington, D.C. where members of tech corporations competed to develop apps to help youth aging out of care.

She also won received the Governors Foster Care Youth Award and the National Foster Youth Institutes Outstanding Young Leader Award. She is a Court Approved Special Advocate in the state of Wisconsin, through Kids Matter.

Kids Matter said preventing child abuse is not accidental, it’s intentional. The nonprofit said to lookout for warning signs, like changes in behavior and injuries.