To bring awareness to domestic violence during Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Sacramento State clubs and organizations created on-campus events to educate the college community on the issue.

Domestic violence is characterized as the willful intimidation, assault, battery, sexual assault and/or other abusive behavior perpetrated by an intimate partner against another. One in four women will experience it.

The Clothesline Project, a national program created in 1990 to address the issue of violence against women, was brought to campus by two separate organizers.

Sac State’s Associated Students Inc. hosted its own version of the shirt-decorating project in the Union as a week-long event.

The other, brought to campus on April 23 through a partnership with the Student Health Center, Women’s Resource Center and Women Escaping a Violent Environment, was a traveling exhibit of T-shirts with student messages and violent accounts written on them.

“This is a group of shirts that has been collected over the past 15 years and travels throughout the Tri-County area,” said Jessica Heskin, violence and sexual assault services educator. This includes Placer, El Dorado and Sacramento counties.

The shirts were displayed in the Library Quad and were color-coded to represent the different types of domestic violence the messages conveyed, Heskin said.

The shirts were colored white, yellow, blue, purple, red, pink and orange to represent the different types of domestic violence: battery, assault, rape, child sexual abuse, murder, incest and those who were attacked because they were perceived to be lesbian and/ or transgender.

Heskin said the feedback and support from the campus community has been positive, and she would like victims of domestic violence to know that help is out there for them to escape abusive environments.

“If you’re a survivor (of domestic violence), it’s important to know that the community here at Sac State supports your strength,” Heskin said. “The shame isn’t yours – it’s the perpetrators.” Heskin hopes the Clothesline Project will spread awareness to students about domestic violence, and for people to understand that it’s not just a problem for women and children, but men as well.

“A lot of people identify this as female only, but it’s not,” Heskin said. “If we don’t start speaking out about sexual assault, it’s never going to end.”

This project was combined with the annual Jeans for Justice Day, when students and faculty wear jeans as a symbol of support for sexual assault victims and to bring awareness to the issue.

As coordinator, Heskin said in addition to the shirts on display, people passed by to write messages for survivors on little baby rocks, which they plan to donate to Women Escaping a Violent Environment.

The inspiration for the baby rocks came from a project that Women Escaping a Violent Environment is working on for its downtown Sacramento location: a rock garden to be placed outside of the organization’s building.

The idea came from a sexual assault counselor at the organization who had a group of victims decorate large rocks with messages about their experiences, said Amber Brown, prevention education manager for Women Escaping a Violence Environment.

The baby rocks decorated on campus have encouraging messages, like “be strong,” and will be given to sexual assault victims as a symbol of support from the community.

“There’s a big feeling of being alone for sexual assault victims and I hope this gives people courage,” Brown said. “This shows hope, perseverance and faith in one another, and that’s a powerful message.”

ASI also came together to create its own version of the Clothesline Project, something it has never done.

“The Clothesline Project is done throughout the nation, and we thought it would be good to create our own version here at Sac State,” said Ashley Skaggs, coordinator for ASI’s Clothesline Project.

ASI had a table set up in the University Union with plain white T-shirts for students and faculty to decorate with messages. Some of the first shirts were already on display and carried messages like “hit yourself, does it hurt?”

The shirts are going to be stored until next year’s event, Skaggs said. Her goal for the Clothesline Project is to make it bigger every year and make it become a tradition for ASI and Sac State.

“I hope this brings an additional awareness to domestic violence against women and children,” Skaggs said. “It needs to be brought out in the open, so we can take a stand against the perpetrators.”

Junior international relations major Kimberly Jones was one of the many students who stopped to decorate a T-shirt. “I was walking by and they told me what they were doing to help people in violent situations,” said Jones, who works as a supervisor for the Union.

For Jones, the T-shirts take on a deeper meaning, as she has family members who are in an abusive environment.

“My sister is in a bad situation,” Jones said. “I just wish she knew; I feel like she doesn’t think she can get out of it.”

Jones said the project that ASI has created will be a good place for victims to see the support from the community.

“It’s for people who feel like they don’t have anywhere to go, and it shows that there is help out there,” Jones said. The support from the campus community has been tremendous, Skagg said.

One hundred plain T-shirts were originally purchased for the event and were paid for by ASI community services budget. Due to the amount of students participating, an additional 80 were purchased, Skaggs said.

“I really want to thank the students, faculty and anyone who stopped to take five minutes out of their lives to do this,” Skaggs said. “Hopefully it will make a difference for the future.”

For more information about Sexual Assault Awareness Month, contact Jessica Heskin at (916) 278-3799. For information on ASI’s Clothesline Project, contact Ashley Skaggs at [email protected].

Isela Reyes can be reached at [email protected].