Sexual Assault Awareness Month
Calvin College will present a number of powerful moments the next two weeks as it pauses to mark Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
The college's Sexual Assault Prevention Team (SAPT) will kick things off on April 16 and 19 when it gathers at Johnny's (the on-campus coffee shop) to pass out lavender ribbons for members of the Calvin community to wear in support of sexual assault survivors.
Calvin's Anamarie Joosse, a counselor and chair of the SAPT, says the team also will have available a Pledge for Action, written by Mike Domitrz and The Date Safe Project.
"It's a challenge for people to join the effort to eliminate sexual violence," she says, "by examining our words, actions, and beliefs about sexual assault and relationship violence."
Calvin also will take part in a nationwide effort called The Clothesline Project, a visual display, says Joosse, that bears witness to sexual violence against women and men.
"The Clothesline is hung with shirts that have been designed and painted by anonymous survivors and their friends or loved ones," she says. "Our hope is that this project may help some with the healing process, raise awareness of the prevalence of violence in relationships, and communicate to survivors suffering in silence they are not alone."
Participation in the project, she notes, is anonymous and confidential.
People will be invited to create shirts between April 16 and April 25 prior to the Clothesline Project display being unveiled April 24 and 25 from 9 am to 5 pm and April 26 and 27 from 1:30 to 5 pm.
Also on April 19 a Calvin student will speak on "Rape: A Survivor's Story" in an event open only to female Calvin students.
