Project brings sexual abuse awareness to campus

By Matthew Meyerhofer

A variety of brightly-colored shirts decorate the Santa Clara Mall this week as the university participates in the "Clothesline Project," a program that calls attention to the violence women have suffered from sexual abuse.

"I think it's really important to raise the awareness around the issue of violence against women in all of its forms," Jeanne Zeamba, the director of the Wellness Center at Santa Clara, said.

"It's about breaking the silence of this topic, which is often hidden because of the shame associated," she said. The Wellness Center coordinated the event in conjunction with the Rape Education and Prevention Program.

According to statistics provided by Zeamba from the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN), 14.8 percent of American women have been victims of rape during their lifetime, amounting to a total of 17.7 million women nationwide. They estimate that only about one in every three rapes is reported to law enforcement officials.

Project organizers encourage survivors of sexual assault and their loved ones to decorate and hang a T-shirt on a clothesline near the Benson Center. The shirts will hang in the Santa Clara Mall throughout week, each one representing a different woman's experience.

Freshman Megan Feldmar, a member of REPP, helped bring the project here this year.

"Rape in general is such a sensitive issue and nobody ever wants to talk about it because it's so horrific," she said. "Talking about it helps to stop it, and it helps survivors feel less ashamed and less guilty. It's a great thing to do because it opens everybody's eyes to see that it happens, and it happens a lot."

The project was originally sponsored by REPP when it was a chartered student organization under the Office of Student Life, but now it is a program in the Wellness Center.

"The Clothesline Project is a very visual, powerful display that really shares the voices of survivors in a way that might not be publicly presented otherwise," Zeamba said. "This is an opportunity to bring awareness of the subject to the Santa Clara community. Violence has happened here; it's happened to our students."

The project started in 1990 in Cape Cod, Mass., as a local effort to spread awareness about violence toward women.

In conjunction with the Clothesline Project, the Wellness Center is hosting "Take Back the Night," a rally designed to promote awareness, Thursday evening.

The program starts with a 7 p.m. rally in the Santa Clara Mall. Planned speakers include university President Paul Locatelli, S.J., university faculty, the Santa Clara Police Department and Santa Clara alumni.

A candlelight march will follow the speeches, which will conclude in the basement of Dunne Hall, where survivors and their loved ones will have a chance to share their stories with attendees of the gathering.

"It's a very emotional and difficult experience, but amazing for everyone who attends," Zeamba said.

Zeamba said she doesn't want men to feel like they are isolated from the issue of violence against women, and that the Wellness Center will be starting a program soon designed to get men involved.

"We want to empower men to help stop sexual assault and rape, but also the more often overlooked offenses toward women," Zeamba said.

The project, junior Amber Cameron said, is important because "people forget how close this kind of thing is. When you think about something like rape or death being caused by an act of violence, you think about it happening in a different community other than a Catholic university."

Sophomore Kristina Pereiraâ€"Tully, another REPP member, said, "I feel like it's something that people don't talk about, and I understand why, but we have to understand that it happens and we have to try to change how often sexual assault occurs."

GALA member Stacey Everheart echoed other sentiments, and is concerned that rape and sexual abuse are "horribly" under-reported.

"It breaks a lot of the preconceptions people have when they think about this kind of issue."

û Contact Matthew Meyerhofer at (408) 554-4546 or mmeyerhofer@scu.edu.