[Wamvan] rape culture and federally funded educational program

[Kyla Jamieson]

Hi WAM!,

*trigger warning: rape, date rape*

This is my first e-mail to the WAM list, so I'm a bit nervous. I hope this
is an appropriate topic to contact you all about.

I was recently participating in the Explore program in Trois Rivières,
Qué., but left the program after staff members performed a date rape drug
skit that was triggering and completely inappropriate (the punchline was
that the would-be rapist found one girl too unattractive to try to rape
her). What concerned me most was that when I tried to address this issue
with the admin, they were both reluctant and uninformed, saying "it's not
our responsibility to educate people about consent," even though "every
time we run the program a girl is drugged and/or raped." (they later took
back the later statement, though they did say that a participant in the
spring session was raped, and I have heard about one rape there last
summer). The admin said that if I wanted them to educate program
participants, say, by showing a video about consent, during one of the
assemblies--to counteract the impressions about rape the skit created--I
would have to find a video for them, because they don't know how. When I
insisted that they provide resources to survivors of sexual assault, they
provided information for one resource that is available only in French,
though French is not a first language of 95% of the program participants.

I have been told that the provincial coordinator for Explore and the
Director of CMEC (the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada) will be
following up on this issue. My worry is that Explore, like so many
university campuses, has a silent rape epidemic on its hands. At best, some
of its programs are woefully unwilling and unprepared to educate
participants about resources, sexual assault, and consent. I'm also
concerned that the Explore program in general, as it is not centralized in
one city/on one campus, may have no policies in place around education and
staff training w/r/t sexual assault.

So, WAM!VAN: Anyone want to write about this or know how to get the media
involved? I think the more people who hear and talk about this the better,
and I would like to see someone hold the admin at Trois Rivières
accountable.

My email: kyjamieson at gmail.com

Thanks!!

-K
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