Back-to-back events to end Sexual Awareness Month

Amanda Knauer

The Women’s Center will be ending its Sexual Awareness Month with two back-to-back activities taking place at the Student Center Plaza Thursday, April 25 from 4 to 7 p.m.

The first is the Clothesline Project Display, which is a visual display of shirts with messages and illustrations hung on a clothesline and viewed by others. The designers of the shirts are survivors of sexual violence, their friends or their families.

Jennie O’Connell, Sexual Assault Response Team coordinator, said the purpose of this project is to increase the awareness around campus and to provide another avenue for victims to break through the silence.

Following this will be the second event, Take Back the Night. O’Connell said this is an international march to promote empowerment in women and survivors of sexual violence. A name burning ceremony will begin at 7:30 p.m., followed by a speech from State Representative Kathleen Clyde at 8 p.m. The march will follow the speaker.

O’Connell said the overall theme of the events are empowerment and solidarity.

“As a community, we want to come together to say that members of the Kent State community take sexual violence seriously and that as a University community, we are working to ensure that all members of the community are supported and know that they are not alone,” O’Connell said.

Contact Amanda Knauer at [email protected].