NeXtGen Digest

ThinkTank at the Fort Wayne Women’s Bureau

We met at the Fort Wayne Women’s Bureau to kick off the ThinkTank mode of NeXtGen Digest.

Rya Morgan, Director of the Rape Awareness Program detailed the FWWB’s programs and jumped right into contemporary issues with Rape Prevention.

Here are some highlights:

• Framing Rape Awareness and Prevention as a Public Health Issue, like smoking, allows individuals to take responsibility in changing social norms, through a proven model: It is no longer acceptable to smoke in public; we could do the same with sexual assault and violence.
• Many factors including the shame associated with Rape has prevented us from taking it up as a preventable issue.
• Rape has historically been treated as a women’s issue, limiting the role half of our society plays and contributing to the stigmatizing of victims.
• Rape Programs have traditionally worked on the education and prevention side with women: teaching women defense strategies and education about date rape prevention. These programs continue to be a crucial part of the whole picture.
• Victim services continues to be a vital tool in a community’s Rape Program
• To fully mobilize the community, Rya suggests the need to engage men in the program: as role models, as speakers, as participants, as fathers, brothers, & sons
• The FWWB Walk a Mile in Her Shoes fundraiser underscored the support of local men.
• FWWB launched the Engaging Men’s Task Force bringing together community members from the YWCA, Center for Nonviolence, and core of teen volunteers Read the rest of this entry »