Sexual assault and domestic violence awareness: clothesline project is more than just art
Local organizations for domestic violence awareness hosted the Clothesline Project this week at Utah State University. USU has been putting on events like the Clothesline Project to bring awareness about domestic violence and sexual assault.
The Clothesline project is an ongoing event that happens every year. It is a national campaign that is done all across campuses and it began at USU in 1990.
“It allows survivors of violence, as well as friends and family members, to decorate T-Shirts, and uniquely display their feelings through art,” said Stephanie Bagnell, the program coordinator for the USU center of Women and Gender. “We hope that it will help students at USU become aware of the issues surrounding domestic violence and empower them to prevent violence in their own lives or in the lives of others.”
USU’s center for Women and Gender partnered with the Sexual Assault and Anti-Violence Information, or SAAVI, center on campus to put on the event. Other groups at the event include: Citizens Against Physical and Sexual Abuse, or CAPSA, and Global Village Gifts. Each of these groups brought information about awareness and prevention.
“The thing about domestic violence is people may not know they are in domestic violence relationships or in an abusive relationship, just because abuse has become normalized in their life,” said Bret Nielson, an intern at SAAVI, and a social work senior at USU. “There is that manipulation, and so sometimes they do not even know they are in an unhealthy relationship, they just know something is wrong. So what we wanted to do with this display is to show people these different things so that they can become empowered.”
The event is being held in the USU Taggart Student Center’s lounge and started on Tuesday at 9 a.m. and will remain up until Thursday at 5 p.m. The clothes remain up at all times so that people can come and walk through the event, there are also daily booths, information, a silent auction, discussions, a speaker and a documentary film. All proceeds of the event will be going to SAAVI.
Tuesday was awareness day, and a SAAVI awareness discussion at 12 p.m. Wednesday represented prevention day. At 12 p.m. there was a speech by Makayla Hancey, and then at 7 p.m. there was a showing of Breaking the Silence, a documentary film. Thursday represents survivor day, and at 4 p.m. there will be a survivor panel discussion.
“The gongs and whistles going off during the event represent violence and sexual assault. The gong being hit every nine to ten seconds represents a woman being battered in America, and the whistle represents rape,” Nielson said. “These issues are really prevalent, and that is what we wanted to exude to our students, this does happen and we are here to help.”
CAPSA is a Logan-based resource for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. It provides a 24-hour shelter for victims for 30 days, it also provides housing in Logan. The program has other outsources such as free therapy, and classes that help women, men and children learn to live on their own outside of their abuse.
“These terrible things happen everywhere and so we have people from campus seeking our help as well as Logan non-student residents,” said Jacob Stacy, a volunteer with CAPSA. “The nation’s statistics for sexual abuse is one in four, and in Utah it comes in at one in three. Utah is really high for sexual assault and domestic violence.”
The SAAVI office and center for Women and Gender recently put on a Red Zone event, and are putting on an upcoming Rock Against Rape concert that is a benefit concert for SAAVI offices.
More information on USU’s Sexual Assault and Anti Violence center is available at www.usu.edu/saavi/.
—jillian.mccarthy@aggiemail.usu.edu