Take Back the Night

Over the next week, I will be blogging about a very amazing program at my college that I am proud to participate in each year. Take Back the Night is a week of events designed to increase awareness about issues of sexual violence. The ultimate goal is to unite to stand against all violence.

As awareness is such a key part of my personal platform, it's an incredible experience to unite with the women of my school to stand up against violence, which happens against women at an alarming rate. Tonight was the first night of events, which was creating a clothesline of all the t-shirts we made (which we will wear in the march next week) and an open mic night for survivors or others to speak about their personal experience or how violence makes them feel. I will be taking pictures at each event and sharing them here. The co-chair of this Take Back the Night is Stacey Lantz, a great girl who has organized a wonderful week. She is also my co-intern at the YWCA Domestic Violence Center right here in Lynchburg.


Since I am so close to my platform, I sometimes forget that others aren't aware of the most basic information about the prevalence of domestic and sexual violence, so each night I will post a few questions or facts about it.
The pictures in this post are of some of the t-shirts being made tonight, my friend Whitney working on her t-shirt, and my friend Vanessa and I decorating our t-shirts.
How many women are affected by domestic violence?
-Around the world, 1 in 3 women have reported sexual or domestic violence in their lifetime.

Why focus on women?
In 2001, 85% of reported domestic violence was of incidents in which women were victims. They are the primary victims of abuse!