By now if you've read most of my posts, you probably care about this awful issue. I would hope so! If you are reading my posts and feeling helpless like, "what can I do?" or "how can I help?", have no worries! This post will be dedicated to my suggestions as a student on how YOU can get involved! It is never too late to raise awareness about domestic abuse, and it can start as small as a conversation. I will be talking about high school and college, but if parents are reading this, you can pass these suggestions along to them! I will also provide resources from my favorite organizations at the end of this post for both students and parents.
Are you excited?! To be honest, when I first got involved in domestic abuse I had no connection to it. My older brother was on the high school task force because one of his best friends was in an abusive relationship and she was the president of the task force. The high school task force started a year or two before I started high school, and it was very understaffed. One day they were handing out flyers during Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and my brother asked me to help. I helped, read the flyers as I was handing them out, and decided I wanted to join my freshman year. By my junior year, I was president. By the time I was a senior, the group size had tripled.
There were task forces in at least 5 other neighboring schools in my state, and we collaborated. I became my town's representative for Teen PeaceWorks, which was a local branch of a domestic violence shelter DVCCCT (Domestic Violence Crisis Center Connecticut). This is who our proceeds went to, and where most of our resources came from. If you live in Rhode Island, there are 7 well-known shelters and probably a dozen of other nonaffiliated programs. If you are from any other state, go to your state's coalition site and all of the shelters should be listed there. Typically, the website will start with the first letter of your state followed by cadv.org. For example, Rhode Island's coalition site is ricadv.org, and the national coalition site is http://www.ncadv.org/. There you can find all of the state coalitions and their shelters, as well as helpful information. If you are looking for a shelter to work with, email one of the directors and see if they are willing to collaborate with your high school.
If you are in high school (or for parents who have a child who is in high school), if you don't already have a club for domestic violence awareness and prevention, start one! Find out how to start a club and what regulations your school has. Ask your friends to join you, and make sure you have at least one adult faculty member that can help you out. Once you've got your resources, you can start your work! First thing any club in high school has to do is focus on when they will be doing most of their work: October and February. Obviously you can do work near the holidays in December, or basically anytime! However, October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month and February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month. So, these times are very crucial for your work. Some examples of what you and your club can do to raise funds and awareness are:
- informational booth; contains flyers, purple ribbons, pins, bracelets, any other merchandise for the cause, and resources to nearby shelters
- bake sale with an informational booth
- car wash with informational booth
- silent witnesses; silhouettes (if this is available to you) of victims who have died due to dv
- talent show where funds go to nearby shelters
- hands are not for hurting; have students sign their name on a large banner agreeing that violence is unacceptable- they can trace their hands and sign inside it, for example
- purple day; have a contest with whoever wears the most purple to raise awareness gets a prize
- bracelet sale; get silicone purple bracelets and sell them to raise awareness
- have your group members wear a specific color (red, for example) on a day to signify the number of teens going through an abusive relationship; make an announcement about its significance
I'm sure you can think of many more, but those are just a few! Obviously clubs in colleges can do the same thing as long as you have the permission, funding, and support! All of these suggestions are a great way to do your part to stop the hurt! :)
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