Humber College, the University of Guelph-Humber and IGNITE continue to work together on a series of campaigns to promote awareness and prevention of sexual violence on campus, with several initiatives coinciding with the start of the new school year.
For the second year, we will be using the provincial government’s plan It’s Never Okay: An Action Plan to Stop Sexual Violence and Harassment as a framework for our work with students.
The plan highlights the need to provide awareness of sexual violence on college and university campuses throughout the province, including the need to promote bystander action and the definition of consent – all of which we have incorporated into this year’s activities.
As well as building on the work from last year, including our standalone Sexual Assault & Sexual Violence Policy, we have launched several related projects, including Bringing in the Bystander, a program designed to encourage bystander intervention, and the #wedontstandby pledge, which encourages a concrete commitment to ending behaviours that encourage sexual violence.
A lot has already been accomplished: more than 600 students took the #wedontstandby pledge within the first ten days, and we have already trained 400 students/staff/faculty through the Bringing in the Bystander program, in addition to the 800 individuals trained in the 2015/16 academic year.
There’s still more we can do, but we’ve made a good start.
You can be part of this important work in the following ways:
- Share our #wedontstandby video with your peers, colleagues, students
- Take the #wedontstandby pledge
- Promote our events, including Can I Kiss You?, Take Back the Night and our Consensual Lemonade Stand
- Invite the Consent is Sexy Crew to a class, an event or initiative
- Attend Bringing in the Bystander Training or request a workshop for your class, club, group
As well, you can stay up to date with activities, events and other ongoing efforts on our website, humber.ca/student-life/sexual-assault/help/awareness.
Please join us in the conversation and collective action to end sexual violence on our campus.