[Wamvan] rape culture and federally funded educational program

[Alexandra Tse]

This is a great expose. Well done Kyla! Thank you for bringing this important issue to light. Hope the administration starts taking rape culture seriously and that no other girls get hurt. 

http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2015/07/students-rally-rape-culture-government-funded-explore-program/ 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Kyla Jamieson" <kyjamieson at gmail.com> 
To: wamvan at lists.resist.ca 
Sent: Wednesday, 22 July, 2015 16:22:41 
Subject: [Wamvan] rape culture and federally funded educational program 



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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