One in three women and one in seven men have been victims of domestic abuse. To help spread awareness of this fact during the National Prevention of Domestic Abuse month, the Health and Wellness Center organized several events on campus.
“With all the news about Title IX and sexual assault on campus, [the Health and Wellness Center] wanted to bring some awareness to domestic violence,” Interim Director of Wellness Lyndsey Hawkins said.
The candlelight vigil was intended to support those who have fought domestic abuse and those who are currently fighting, according to Hawkins. However, little respect was paid, as the audience consisted of four people: a Scout reporter, Scout photographer, a Peoria Journal Star photographer and one Bradley student.
“This is actually the last of three events,” senior and organizer of the event DaKya Holcomb said. “The first event we did this month was ‘Walk a Mile in Her Shoes’ and the second one was the Bandana Project.”
At ‘Walk a Mile in Her Shoes,’ male students were asked to wear a pair of high heels and walk across Olin Quad in them, a project Hawkins said was a tribute to empathy toward women.
For the Bandana Project, students were asked to decorate bandanas with inspirational words, pictures or anything else they could think of.
“Some things people wrote were ‘you’re not alone,’ ‘encourage,’ ‘power’ and ‘stop the silence,’” Holcomb said.
Holcomb said she first got the idea to do the bandanas when she was searching for facts about domestic abuse and learned about farm-women who would use bandanas or masks to cover their faces in an attempt to keep men from paying attention to them.
However, October was not just about spreading the message of the prevention of domestic abuse; Title IX has set new regulations for campuses across the country.
“In the news right now, the federal government has put restrictions on colleges on how we are supposed to respond to sexual assault on campuses,” Hawkins said. “So it’s all about gender and sex-based equality and also protecting from gender-based and sex-based discrimination.”
Hawkins said Bradley’s Title IX coordinator ensures faculty and staff are up to date with what is going on, how to properly report incidents and how to protect students.
“We have the Student Support Services Director Anne Hollis,” Hawkins said. “She is doing the outreach to the students and making sure that anyone who is a victim knows the resources. They come in, she tells them all of their options and she becomes their advocate.”
Anyone who is a victim or a witness to domestic abuse can call Center for Student Support Services at (309) 677-3658.
