April is Sexual Assault Awareness month, and the N.C . State Women’s Center has partnered with The Movement to emphasize this awareness on campus.
Carolina Alzuru , rape prevention education coordinator, says she thinks the point of the month is to inform people who might not be paying attention.
“I think most of the issues that have months related to them are really important issues,” Alzuru said. “People are working on these issues year long, but [it helps] having a whole bunch of stuff happen all at once.”
Bryan Perlmutter , junior in business administration and member of The Movement, speaks on the importance of these awareness months in a university setting.
“In The Movement, we believe we need to change our culture in order to prevent all forms of interpersonal violence. In order to change this culture we must first be able to have everyone understand the severity of the issue,” Perlmutter said. “Awareness months and events on campus enable us to begin a campus-wide conversation about what is happening.”
Perlmutter oversees Denim Day, a nationwide movement established in California in 1999. This will take place in the Brickyard April 11 from 10 a.m . to 2 p.m .
Michelle Clayton, junior in sociology and member of The Movement, wants to see students’ passions channeled into helping others.
“I think college students have a lot of passion and a general interest in bettering the world, whether that be in engineering new technology or making a ground-breaking medical discovery,” Clayton said.
Clayton is organizing a Postcard Secret event April 10 from 5-8 p.m . on the third floor of Harrelson . Students wishing to submit a secret can leave an anonymous postcard in one of the lock-boxes on campus. These can be found at most 24-hour desks, Talley Student Center, D.H . Hill Library, and Witherspoon Student Center. This event will put those cards on display with a special section for secrets dealing with sexual assault.
“If we can ignite that kind of fire of passion in people in advocating for issues of social justice, like eradicating sexual violence, imagine everything we could accomplish and the type we could lead if discrimination didn’t exist,” Clayton said.
Clayton hopes events like these will educate people on how real sexual assault can be.
“[The Movement] decided to do a Postcard Secret event because of the inherent anonymity involved in it. We live in a culture where sexual violence isn’t talked about. Survivors are not encouraged to report. Instead, they are encouraged to deal with that incredible pain in silence, often not telling anyone,” Clayton said.
Postcard Secret gives people the opportunity to write their experiences, their message of strength, or even feelings of worthlessness and guilt inspired by their trauma, according to Clayton. She added sexual assault is something that happens to one in four women in their lifetime but is rarely spoken about.
The final event in April is going to be incorporated into the Hillsborough Hike April 27 from 9-11 p.m . As alcohol is a common tool in sexual assault, The Movement will promote bystander interventions. They will be handing out Koozies with an educational message of sexual violence prevention.
“Our goal here is to prevent sexual violence. So…we need all the N.C . State community to come together for that,” Alzuru said. “Having us working on it, and The Movement who do so much work around campus on it, throughout the year isn’t going to be enough. We really need the whole community, and this is a way to get the word out.”
Students who are interested in joining The Movement can apply by April 10 to ECD222 : Sexual Violence Prevention for Peer Educators. This course will only be available to students who fill out an application and go through a brief interview process, but upon completing the class, students will become official members of The Movement. For more information, students can contact Alzuru at [email protected] or visit ncsu.edu / themovement .
