From Sarah, a beloved board member out on the west coast, come these pictures of the University of Redlands V-Day performance benefitting SAFER! Says Sarah:
The ladies put on a stunning performance to a packed room. Their hot pink V-Day “superman” T-shirts were selling like hotcakes. Congrats to the V-Day performers, and thanks for benefiting SAFER!
I’ll add my thanks as well – V-Days around the country are some of SAFER’s biggest supporters – we couldn’t keep going without these students!
We posted an announcement a little while ago about the University of Redlands Speak Out against sexual assault, part of a campaign by students to increase awareness of sexual assault on their campus. The organizer reports that it was a success, and the local paper covered the event with a lot of sensitivity. It sounds like it was an intense and positive experience.
The event encouraged several people who had never shared their stories before to speak up, including men who had been assaulted (a kind of sexual assault that we hear about far too infrequently for how often we know it occurs). I hope that the Speak Out moves the conversation about sexual assault at Redlands forward, and we’ll keep you posted as we hear more from that campaign.
A student contacted us to let us know about a speak out happening tomorrow at the University of Redlands in Redlands, CA. Her message:
“My friends and I are organizing a a speak out against sexual violence and rape on our campus this next Wednesday, February 20th, at 4 pm.
This speak out comes on the heels of an incident of sexual violence on our campus. A student was raped and although she wanted to remain anonymous, the school told the accused boy and he proceeded to tell all his friends she was lying. The boy was asked to either face and expulsion hearing or withdraw from school and he made the choice to not fight and withdraw. The boys friends have since made “Save Cory” (Cory is the boy) t-shirts and have spent the last week following the victim around school and harassing her. They have yelled at her, glared at her, told everyone they know she is a liar, and went so far as to show up at her performance of the Vday vagina monologues wearing their t-shirts and glare at her the entire time.
My friends and I created t-shirts that say “rape me” on the front and “your friends will support you” on the back. The goal of our t-shirts was to create dialogue about the situation and what the rape laws are in general. We accomplished this and the feedback was so overwhelming that we decided to have this speakout to raise even more awareness.”
If you like to get in touch with the organizers, you can contact smartonej22@hotmail.com.
