Kent State Students Learning more Through Each Sip of Coffee
April 1st is the beginning of Sexual Assault Awareness month, so many wear a teal ribbon to raise awareness. At Kent State University, they are raising awareness through each sip of coffee.
Three coffee spots on campus; Moyo in Oscar Ritchie, The Bean Scene in the Cue, and Simons café in the architecture building all forcing students and faculty to pay attention to the sleeves of their cups.
Each coffee sleeve is given out with quick facts from the National Center for Victims of Crimes The creative idea stemmed from an employee at the Sexual and Relationship Violence Support Services located in the Williamson House on Campus.
Meghan Lee, the Graduate student and creator of this initiative had one goal in mind with the coffee sleeve project, “Making sure that we can gain the visibility that we need for the Kent State community so that way they know we are here so maybe within their four years of their undergraduate degree, they never have to come into our office,” said Lee.
Lee has one main goal; to raise awareness. As Lee is striving to raise awareness on campus, student managers at the various sleeve locations are noticing a change.
“I have definitely heard people talking about them,” said Claire Bobel at Simon’s café. It is important that students are talking because each year according to rain.org, one in three college females will experience sexual assault or sexual harassment while 1 in 16 men will experience the same.
Those specific statistics deal with college students only and can be prevented with these quick facts given by the National Center for Victims of Crime.
As it important to know the statistics, Gabrielle Pacsu, at the Bean Scene says, “If it does happen on campus and with people our age, then a lot of people our age does not want to talk about it or feel comfortable talking about it.”
According to RAINN.org, for every 1,000 sexual violent acts, only 310 of them go reported to the authorities. As a lot of acts go unreported, Lee emphasized the response that she has received from all aspects of the university in hopes to break this statistic.
Lee states. “…it has been overwhelmingly positive response, so we have had a lot of staff members that have reached out to us and they didn’t know we were doing this initiative, but they reached out and thought this was a really great idea and then several students have contacted us.”
If you are a victim of sexual assault or want to raise awareness you can find various resources on SRVSS website as well as RAINN.org.
The first of April began sexual assault awareness month, and the Kent State University Community is doing something different to raise awareness. Watch for my upcoming story. #JMCRPP
— Mariel Zambelli (@M_Zambelli72) April 12, 2018
When you take a sip of your coffee make sure to take a look at the sleeve. You may find anew fact about sexual assault on college campuses that you did not know before. Stay tuned for my story. #JMCRPP
— Mariel Zambelli (@M_Zambelli72) April 12, 2018
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