Santa Barbara’s Elsa Granados Stands with Spain to End Sexual Assault

Santa Barbara’s
Elsa Granados
Stands with Spain
to End Sexual Assault

STESA’s Longtime Executive Director
Helps Spanish Government Establish
52 Rape Crisis Centers

By Callie Fausey | June 22, 2023

SPREADING THE WORD: STESA Executive Director Elsa Granados first spoke about her collaboration with Spain at the Santa Barbara nonprofit’s Chocolate de Vine fundraiser on May 20, 2023. | Credit: Ingrid Bostrom

When the Spanish government first contacted Elsa Granados in 2018, she had no idea she’d become instrumental in establishing a network of 52 rape crisis centers around the country.

Granados, the executive director of the nonprofit formerly known as the Santa Barbara Rape Crisis Center, didn’t even realize she was speaking to a high-level government official when the caller initially sought her advice.

She quickly discovered that Spain was embarking on a worldwide quest to find crisis centers to emulate as they established their own. The woman Granados was speaking to was not a counterpart, as she originally thought, but the personal advisor to the country’s Minister of Equality.