Students Active for Ending Rape (SAFER) provides organizing
training and support to college and university students so that they can win
improvements to their schools' sexual assault prevention and response
activities. By offering students the necessary support and resources,
confidence-building and leadership training, SAFER empowers student activists to
rally the community and push school administrations to take action.
Through these efforts, students
across the country can begin to build a larger movement that will have
widespread effects on the perception and response to sexual violence on a
societal level.
More details about our programs are available under Students. Our 2006-2007 annual report
has information about our recent accomplishments. You can also view past newsletters and announcements online.
statement of purpose
Current university sexual assault policies are ineffective, inaccessible, and often further traumatize survivors of violence. By maintaining policies that provide insufficient prevention efforts, unenforced and poorly executed disciplinary procedures, and inadequate rape crisis counseling, colleges create an on-campus atmosphere that condones sexual assault and silences survivors.
We Believe:
that every college sexual assault response should include effective reporting mechanisms, fair disciplinary procedures, meaningful prevention efforts, and short and long-term crisis and counseling services for survivors.
that all services and prevention programs should be available, accessible, and relevant to the many communities present on college campuses. Gender, race, sexual identity, ethnicity, and class affect access to services and support, and the perception and treatment of survivors. Too often, colleges ignore the needs of marginalized groups, making it more likely that members of these groups will experience sexual violence, and less likely that they will find adequate services in the wake of such attacks. In addition, colleges ignore the needs of the communities within which they exist, focusing only on students and dodging responsibility to those who live around them. A change of campus sexual assault policies must address these inequalities.
that those with authority over others will not change their behavior unless they are challenged with a power that equals their own. We believe that organizers should actively challenge those in power with the assumption that when policies are flawed, the individuals responsible for those policies should be held accountable for their actions. To this end, we support tactics up to and including acts of nonviolent civil disobedience.
that all oppressions are inextricably linked. Sexual assault affects every member of a community, and effective anti-violence organizing challenges every aspect of patriarchy, including racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, and all forms of oppression. Anti-violence organizing has often excluded the interests of poor people, people of color, members of the LGBTQ community, people with disabilities, and other marginalized groups, and we are committed to building an anti-violence movement that represents everyone. To this end, all SAFER training events and publications for students include anti-oppression training.
that by providing student leaders with the support and guidance they need to change the nature of responses to sexual violence within their communities, we can begin to build a larger movement that will have widespread effects on the perception and response to sexual violence on a societal level. By changing attitudes and institutions on a community level, we believe that we can change society.
