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Printer-Friendly ModePrevention focus of sexual assault awareness month
Student counseling center to sponsor numerous assault-awareness related displays and events
April 9, 2007 —
"After students are made aware [of sexual assault], prevention can begin," says 21-year-old junior, Kristi Hunt, who made reference to a statistic in the most recent National Crime Victimization Survey: one in every four college women have been victimized by sexual assault.
April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM), and SVSU's Student Counseling Center (SCC) has organized a series of events, displays and workshops throughout the month in an effort to raise campus awareness. Hunt is a peer educator working with the Director of the Student Counseling Center, Tony Thomson, as head of the committee in charge of SAAM.
The events began last week with a Survivor Art display provided by the Sexual Assault Program of Saginaw's Child and Family Services. The display was set up outside of the Cardinal Cage and was composed of various works created by survivors of sexual assault.
These types of displays continue throughout the month; all will be set up outside of the Cardinal Cage. Tomorrow the Bay County Women's Center has sponsored the Clothesline Project, which is a clothesline with various t-shirts decorated by sexual assault survivors.
From April 16 through the 19, the Underground Railroad is sponsoring a Dinner Table display. The display is a dinner table and several vignettes symbolizing various familial or other dinner-type situations that will incorporate how sexual assault affects individuals and those surrounding them.
Finally, from April 23 through the 26, the Midland Shelterhouse will be displaying Silhouettes, which will have statistics and stories on them reflecting the effects of sexual assault on individuals and our society as a whole.
"These displays and events are [SVSU's] way of chiming in on a national cause," Thomson said.
Two workshops will be held at various times throughout the month. The first is entitled "Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention," which is an overview of what sexual assault is and statistics relating to it, among other things. This workshop will be held in the Unity Room on both April 16 from 10:15 to 11:15 p.m. and April 17 from noon to 1 p.m. The second workshop is entitled "How to Help a Sexual Assault Survivor: What Men Can Do." This workshop is being held in the Living Center South First Floor Lounge on both April 11 and April 18 from 10:15 p.m. to 11:15 p.m.
"These workshops are student-led," Thomson said, "and we're encouraging all campus organizations and clubs to have representatives at them because these are issues the entire campus needs to be aware of."
There will also be a Tree Dedication Ceremony held from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. in the Rhea Miller Recital Hall on April 18. The dedication will move out to the small courtyard between Wickes and Brown Hall to unveil a plaque and newly planted tree commemorating SAAM. The plaque will read: "Honoring the Commitment to End Sexual Violence. Sexual Assault Awareness Month 2007."
"We hope to have a similar dedication occur every year in the same courtyard during April," Thomson said.
April 19 is Denim Day, one of the highlights of the month. Denim Day started in 1999 when an Italian Supreme Court decision set a convicted rapist free. The decision was based on the fact that the 18-year-old victim was wearing tight jeans at the time of the assault and the presumption that tight jeans are impossible to remove without the assistance of the individual wearing them. In protest to the court's decision, it has become an international symbol to wear jeans on April 19. Throughout the month, students and faculty can get a Denim Day button with a $1 minimum donation in the SCC Office (Curtiss 112) and are encouraged to wear the buttons on that day.
"We have been working on the SAAM events for a long time," Hunt says, "and I think that the month of April is very important because these types of occurrences need to be known and talked about."
Hunt also volunteers for the Saginaw Child and Family Service's Sexual Assault Program, which made her eager to work on the SAAM Project here at SVSU. The program offers free counseling for any victims of sexual assault in the area. As a volunteer, she has times where she is on-call to respond to sexual assault cases at local hospitals or to the phone calls of distressed victims.
"Awareness really is the first step of prevention," she restated. "When I'm on-call [for Saginaw's SA Program], I almost want to be paged on some level because we know these things are happening all of the time. The normal response is silence, which is why I want to be paged - because it means someone is coming forward to get help."
For more information on SAAM events, please visit the SCC Web site at svsu.edu/counseling.