The Relationship and Sexual Violence Prevention Center was painting — quite literally — the campus green on Tuesday.
“Today, is Green Dot Day, and it is very exciting,” RSVP Center graduate assistant Alyssa Rodgers said. “We’re sponsoring this day to get the word out about Green Dot. We’re trying to ‘Green Dot’ Mizzou.”
A “Green Dot” is any word, choice or action that anyone does to prevent an act of violence. Green Dots can range from anything such as checking on a friend at a party to breaking up a potential fight between a quarreling couple, RSVP Center graduate assistant Holly Hanover said.
“The easiest thing to do is to just check on your friends,” Hanover said. “Your friends may be in relationships, and they may not be super healthy — they may be emotionally abusive. You should just check in with them — ask them how it’s going and let them know you’re available to talk.”
Some Green Dots can be as simple as updating a Facebook status to show support for the program, Hanover said.
“Little things like that — saying that you support this work and telling people about it,” she said.
Camped on Lowry Mall, advocates of the Green Dot program stopped students passing by throughout the day to educate them on the program.
“We really wanted to get everyone involved, and here on Lowry, we can try and attract students,” Rodgers said. “We made really great connections and we want people to be able to be involved with this. We figured if we put ourselves right smack dab in the middle of campus, we’re going to catch all of the traffic coming through.”
Sophomore Kayla Jackson was present at the event, holding a sign in support of the campaign.
“It’s a good cause,” Jackson said. “I’m all for ending violence, so whatever I can do to help.”
She stood adjacent to a map of campus which programmers encouraged students to mark with a green dot wherever they performed one. Typically, police stations denote an act of violence, harassment or rape with a red dot on a map.
“Green Dots are basically the opposite of that,” Jackson said. “Instead of something happening where there was sexual assault, it could be a Green Dot saying, ‘Hey, I helped somebody who was drunk get a ride home.’”
These acts should be commonplace at MU, participants agreed.
“We want to encourage people to know that at Mizzou, this is what we do,” Rodgers said. “We look out for one another.”
This campaign isn’t limited to any age, gender or other defining characteristic. Anyone can perform a Green Dot, Rodgers said.
“We’re not trying to target any one particular person,” she said. “Men, women, students, staff — anyone can do something. That’s kind of our slogan: ‘Nobody has to do everything, but somebody has to do something.’”
