T-shirts hung from a line through Lowry Mall on Wednesday, each hand-decorated with personal messages of shame and hatred, others forgiveness and strength. These T-shirts were a part of the Relationship and Sexual Violence Prevention Center’s Clothesline Project.
Last week, survivors, supporters and perpetrators of sexual violence gathered to make the T-shirts at the RSVP Center, using them as a way to have their voice heard. The T-shirts were decorated with both words and pictures to show how the abuse has changed lives. These shirts, along with shirts made at the past years’ events, were all displayed to the public.
The annual event, the first of many this month, is held in October every year as part of Relationship Violence Awareness Month.
RSVP Center staff member Melissa Munoz said the idea of T-shirts came from the stereotypical role of women: laundry was typically a woman’s job. Violence and abuse were usually kept quiet in the household, but neighbors would use the time spent hanging the laundry in the backyards to speak and discuss these types of issues.
The project was started in 1990 by a coalition of women’s groups in Massachusetts, according to the Clothesline Project’s website. The project has since spread to universities across the country as a type of craft therapy.
Although it was originally intended as a way for women to have a more powerful voice than domestic violence statistics, the idea has grown and perpetrators of abuse are now coming forward to create their own T-shirts as a way of healing, asking for forgiveness from those they hurt.
“People participate in this event to have their story told,” RSVP Center staff member Leecia Sanders said. “It’s a creative way to say it’s not OK.”
The project was put on by the student group Strong Together Against Relationship and Sexual Violence as well as True North, a shelter and domestic abuse resource in Columbia, as a way to make the issues of sexual violence more apparent to students on campus.
“For the first time, it gets people to have a glimmer of thought about sexual violence,” Munoz said. “It’s pretty powerful.”
Many students stopped on their way to classes to take a few moments to read or to take pictures of the messages drawn on the shirts, showing support of survivors.
One student, a close friend of a rape survivor, said the project gives survivors a voice.
“It shows they can be strong, and they don’t let it define them,” he said.
Munoz also said students can show their support by joining student groups like STARS or taking part in the Green Dot strategy, which is a way to promote actions taken to stop violence on campus.
STARS is an organization affiliated with the RSVP Center that puts on events around campus throughout the year to raise awareness of relationship violence.
STARS’ next event for Relationship Abuse Awareness Month will be STARS Speaks: Troubling Violence. An acting company will be coming to perform possible scenarios students could find themselves in, and others will be giving personal stories to teach student the emotions found in violent situations. It will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. Oct. 11 in the Wrench Auditorium in Memorial Union.
