For Dating Violence Action Month, Safer teamed up with Lumina Alliance to host their “We Deserve” series, a month full of events and workshops to get students involved in the movement to end dating violence.
The events focus on what people deserve in terms of relationships including boundaries, communication, equity, independence and joy.
“It’s an exciting time to be able to bring people into the fold of that conversation, especially on something like dating violence, which people tend to not associate with college students,” Jennifer MacMartin, Safer’s gender-based violence prevention specialist, said. “They think of it as an older demographic, but it very much happens here.”
The month started with a discussion on violence prevention, public health and social justice with a large turnout, according to MacMartin.
“We’re really lucky,” MacMartin said. “This month we’ve been able to reach a lot of first years, which is always a huge goal of ours of getting people connected early.”
As the month continues, MacMartin hopes to send people home knowing what they deserve in their relationships and looks forward to bringing older students into the conversation through upcoming events, such as trivia and a costume party.
The trivia and costume party, called “We Deserve Joy,” is the last event of the month. The party will take place on Tuesday, Oct. 25 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Broad Street Public House. Attendees must be 21 or older.
Though the party will be the last event of the series, Safer’s work doesn’t end there.
“This doesn’t stop when October stops,” MacMartin said. “We are doing this work year-round and our team is really dedicated to keeping this conversation lifted and continuing.”
Beyond Dating Violence Action Month, students can get involved in the movement by integrating violence prevention into the work they are already doing on campus through their academics or extracurriculars, and by attending Safer’s leadership training which takes place once every quarter as an extracurricular class.
“It is exciting to think about a future where this doesn’t happen here, and so getting our community to be a part of that is really exhilarating,” MacMartin said.
To learn more about Safer’s events and the resources they provide, visit their website at safer.calpoly.edu.