By Matt Adkins
Take Back the Night, The White Ribbon Campaign and The Pinwheel Project, events held this past week at the University of Louisville to promote the awareness and empowerment to individuals to inspire action and to end violence.
Take Back the Night was the highlight event put on to bring organizations, civic leaders from the Jefferson County area and other individuals to protest violence against women. The rallies have been taking place since 1978 and have occurred in a number of locations around the country.
PEACC, Prevention, Education, and Advocacy on Campus and in the Community, coordinated the event, and did its best to make sure the event was for everyone, not just for women.
Melanie Evans, a graduate student who works for PEACC, felt that this is the best quality about the event. “It encourages everyone to participate,” she said. Along with PEACC, the Student Activities Board also participated in coordinating the event.
“I hope it’s not something that people come to, and then they leave and forget about it,” said Jake Snider a freshman who is undecided on his major, hopes that others will not forget the positive ideas and messages that Take Back the Night has to offer.
“It’s really an eye opener,” said Dominique Lyons, a freshman biochemistry and women’s studies major adding, “I was surprised how many guys that were here.”
The White Ribbon Campaign, another event that took place this week, had 12 volunteers from Men of PEACC, going around Campus, getting other men to sign a pledge that read, “I will never commit, condone or keep silent about violence against women.” When the other men signed the pledge they were given a White Ribbon Men of PEACC wristband to show their support for non-violence against women.
According to Shawn Reilly, a senior political science major, and coordinator for the Men of PEACC, their previous goals of 10 volunteers and 1000 men to sign the pledge were successfully reached and surpassed as 12 volunteers worked with Reilly and 1,021 men signed the petition.
“The work we are doing has been very successful. Even though this is my first year working with PEACC and the White Ribbon Campaign, everything that we have done has gone well and it is very rewarding work,” said Reilly.
The Pinwheel Project was also making its impact on campus by allowing students to place pinwheels in the west lawn beside the Student Activities Center, in honor of survivors of domestic or sexual violence. It was a visual reminder to everyone the number of men and women involved in these violent events.
Katherine Redmond, founder of NCAVA, National Coalition against Violent Athletes, spoke to student-athletes about sexual assault and rape. Redmond herself a victim of rape as an athlete, addressed the athletes themselves by bringing real dialogue and other points that are real life concerns to the table.
“We basically break down some of the myths and get into what is generally a heated dialogue about sexual assault and recent cases,” said Redmond. “Whether they agree with me on certain points or not, I want them to be raw from it and to discuss it openly.” She also feels that college is the best place to start when addressing these concerns and real-life problems. “The college age group is pivotal to truly educating people about the effects of rape and its specific definition,” said Redmond. “It’s so important to communicate about this issue so that messages don’t get crossed. If I can speak to both men and women and we can have a candid dialogue about it, then fewer people will have to suffer through rape,” she said.
