“I think being able to read everybody’s individual stories is really powerful — not only for the person posting, but for the reader,” Safer community outreach coordinator Katy Palmer said.
Kayla Missman
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To raise awareness about sexual assault and create a community for survivors to share their stories, Safer hosts a blog called Break the Silence.
But there’s one problem: It’s not used actively.
The blog hosts stories that could be about “any sexist, hurtful behavior with a sexual undertone,” Safer coordinator Christina Kaviani said, which includes sexual assault, rape, intimate partner violence, sexual pressure, sexual harassment and stalking, according to the website.
Safer is optimistic about the blog, but it does’t have the support it would like.
“I would love it to become almost like a community,” said Katy Palmer, Safer’s community outreach coordinator and anthropology and geography senior. “The plan for the blog is to hopefully grow, and for people to start going on it again and using it and knowing about it.”
The blog began last year as a student’s senior project, inspired by the successful Break the Silence at Vassar blog, which began in October 2011. Currently, there are only a few posts on Cal Poly’s blog, the most recent from September 2013.
Palmer monitors the “completely anonymous” posts, which can be submitted via message to the blog or a comment on the site. She doesn’t allow posts that blame the victim or are otherwise counterproductive to the blog’s goal — but counterproductive stories aren’t the reason the blog is nearly empty.
When the blog was first created, there was a lot of traffic to the site, Palmer said. But nearly a year later, its success has been hindered by inefficient advertising.
“We will hopefully be launching an advertising campaign to reintroduce it and just raise awareness about it, because it’s not as big as it used to be,” she said.
This new campaign should be rolling out by the end of the month, and Safer will begin holding meetings on how to go about re-launching the blog, Palmer said.
Safer’s employees aren’t sure what the campaign will look like, she said, but they will most likely create posters and a video to spread awareness about the blog, and also host a launch party.
Ultimately, Kaviani hopes to have at least one post on the blog each week, which is a closer representation of how often sexual assault occurs, compared to what the number of posts on the site currently reflects.
Seeing consistent stories about personal violence on the blog would help Cal Poly students become more aware of how often assault actually occurs, Palmer said.
“If you notice our statistics for our university’s campus security report last year, there was one sexual assault at Cal Poly,” she said. “According to this, and already at Safer, we’ve seen over 40 students. I think there’s this really unrealistic perspective of sexual assault at Cal Poly. I feel like tools like this, and avenues like this, are what bring awareness and hopefully break down the stigma.”
But awareness is just one of the goals of Break the Silence. Another is to provide an outlet for sexual assault survivors, or friends and family of survivors, to express their experiences anonymously.
The website states, “a common thread throughout most experiences is that these feelings are felt in silence. These crimes are not inevitable, and together we can create a community where we take care of each other, educate one another and ourselves, and end personal violation.”
For survivors, sharing their personal stories “can be a really healthy and positive outlet and coping mechanism in the healing process,” Palmer said.
“I think that people realize (sexual assault) happens, but I think being able to read everybody’s individual stories is really powerful — not only for the person posting, but for the reader,” she said. “I feel like as a survivor, there’s some solace in knowing that while your personal experience is yours, you’re not the only person that’s gone through something that violates who you are.”