RISE-NOW against sexual assault and domestic violence

Undergraduate students in my socially conscious design class Design Rebels at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia are required to create a project that reaches the community beyond the school to talk about some of the issues covered in the course. The RISE-NOW campaign is one of two projects that came from the Fall 2007 semester.

The goal of RISE-NOW is to spread awareness of resources available to survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence. The students created four posters, a website filled with local and national resources, and a brochure (several of which were attached to each poster in a small paper holder). The posters, which were hung up in local bars, restaurants, and stores as well as on campus, are available as hi-res downloadable PDFs.

Comments

Please postal mail some of your anti-abuse posters to:
Y. Bodden
1725 Spinel Rd.
Pflugerville, Tx. 78660
Thank you!

Hi!
The posters are really great! Are you giving them out for free? We are launching a campaign against prostitution in three pilot villages in Baybay City ,Leyte, Philippines as part of our gender sensitivity awareness. It would be nice if we have these kinds of posters. The messages are subtle yet powerful.

More power.

Sincerely,
Belita Vega
Rural Sociologist
Visayas State University
Baybay city, Philippines

I don’t doubt that your students had the best of intentions, but there are some problematic messages implied by the posters they developed.  I’ve used them to illustrate some common myths about rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence on my website, feministhemes.com if you’re interested in my thoughts.

Sounds like a great and meaningful project for your class, though!

I couldn’t find the article you mentioned on your site Miss Wizzle, please feel free to provide a direct link.