Monthly Archives: April 2012

Take Back the Bar 2012: A SAFER Fundraiser!

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Come close out Sexual Assault ACTIVISM Month with SAFER! We’re celebrating a busy month of movement-building in NYC and want you to celebrate with us at Marshall Stack (66 Rivington St.) on Tuesday, May 1, 2012, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm!

For a $10 donation, your first drink is on us. The bar’s regular happy hour runs until 7:00 pm.

All donations go directly to helping us train student activists in how to hold their schools accountable for preventing and responding to sexual violence. Help us reach more students before this semester wraps up!

And, of course, you know we want to hang out and see your lovely faces! COME TAKE BACK THE BAR WITH US!

Help New Yorkers for Safe Transit Fight Sexual Harassment

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Cross-posted from SAFER’s Tumblr. 

New Yorkers for Safe Transit (NYFST), a coalition of organizations and advocates that work toward eliminating harassment and assaults on NYC public transport, has just launched a large-scale survey, online and in-person, on the types of violence and harassment that are really taking place in our communities. NYFST will summarize the findings to share with the public.

Please take a minute to take this quick survey about harassment and assault on the NYC public transportation system by visiting their website: www.nyfst.org/survey (NOTE: We’re having some technical difficulties today, so I’m unable to create a link for the survey. Copy and paste the link to visit the survey website.)

Below is an overview of the survey:

This survey asks questions about harassment and violence. If any of the questions in the survey make you uncomfortable, or you don’t know the answer, you can choose not to respond or choose to stop the survey at any time.

Your information will be used to make a broad analysis about harassment and violence in the public transportation system. We will summarize the responses and may choose to present a summary of our findings publicly.

We would love to stay in touch to tell you about the results of the survey! So please give us your information on the final page if you choose to. Your contact information will be separated from your survey responses. However, we think it’s important for people to tell their stories publicly in order to raise awareness about this issue. If you are interested in sharing your story email us at info@nyfst.org.

PLEASE ONLY COMPLETE THE SURVEY ONCE!

The data will not be taken seriously if we have duplicate responses!

For more information about this survey, and how the information collected will be used, please contact us at info@nyfst.org.

Visit us at http://nyfst.org or follow us on Facebook and Twitter!

Welcome to Sexual Assault ACTIVISM Month 2012

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And so begins another SAAM! Last year, you may remember, SAFER decided to start recognizing April as Sexual Assault ACTIVISM Month, to highlight the awesome action being taken by students on campuses across the country, and to encourage more to get involved and make change. A personal highlight was the great images made by Gangsta Feminists, and hearing the inspiring reasons why so many people were pledging to take action.

This year, we’re focusing our Sexual Assault ACTIVISM Month closer to our home with FlipIt! Students Organizing Against Violence. We’ve been telling you about this one-day student summit for a while now, but if we can’t stop talking about it, it’s just because we’re really excited. On April 14th we–with NOW-NYC and A Long Walk Home–have planned a really special day that melds arts activism and policy activism to strengthen the organizing capacity of student activists across the city. We are focusing particularly on bringing together NYC students of color, LGBTQQI students, students with disabilities, and low-income students to help build a stronger and more representative student anti-violence movement here in the city. As of right now, we are still accepting applications, so apply! And tell your friends. Did I mention that the whole day is free, and includes an amazing multimedia performance from A Long Walk Home? Would breakfast and lunch sweeten the deal? Cause we’ve got that too!

But for those of you not in NYC, we hope you engage with SAFER this SAAM by participating in the Campus Accountability Project if you haven’t already; registering for our Activist Resource Center and checking out our latest piece, “Campus Policy: Down to the Details“; or get the jump on next year by thinking about kicking off 2012-2013 with a SAFER training.

But of course there’s more to activism than just what we do. If you’re doing something great on campus this Sexual Assault ACTIVISM Month, tell us about it. SAAM should be not only about taking action, but building knowledge. What’s working on your campus and what isn’t? Leave us a comment, or contact us. We’d love you to blog about it for us, if you can pull yourself away from your awesome postering/protesting/and speaking out (and and school work and having a non-activist life!) for a few minutes.

Most importantly though; have fun. SAAM can be daunting—for us too. Event planning, organizing, sorting through intense issues…this stuff can be hard, and it takes perseverance and sometimes a lot of courage. Remember to celebrate the small (and large!) victories and take some time to take care of you.

We think it’s gonna be a good April.