The Enliven Project wants to raise awareness about the fact that sexual violence is more common than most cancers. How can you help? Click here.
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The Enliven Project seeks to elevate all of these elements by creating a platform that will engage new leaders, allies, and resources with the anti-sexual violence movement and connect them to the cash-strapped organizations supporting survivors. The graphics that you see here were designed by its Design Council, a group of talented designers committed to lending their skills to end sexual violence. They are designed for use by the field and the movement, not for a single organization. That’s why any anti-sexual violence organization can go to The Enliven Project website, download a template, and customize it with their logo and contact information. Our hope is that lots of organizations can use these tools to raise awareness, resources, and partners to advance their work and the movement at-large.
Movements all have their moments. For breast cancer, it was when Self Magazine covered the idea of the pink ribbon, which was then picked up by Avon and supported by Carol Cone, a pioneer in cause-marketing. For testicular cancer, it was Lance Armstrong’s public and courageous battle with testicular cancer that brought the issue into the limelight. And for AIDS, it was when Ryan White and his family broke the silence about disease and its impact by making their story public. These moments don’t happen randomly though; they happen when individuals and organizations work to create them – again and again – until one sticks.
The rumblings of a movement have already begun. Between the uproar over rape in India, Syria, and Steubenville to the revelations of abuse of children at elite private schools and places like the Boy Scouts to the media attention of Title IX on college campuses, our anger at the human indignity of sexual violence has outweighed our fear of shame and stigma. We can no longer be silent, but many of us do not yet know what we can do.
Movements can start with a single idea, a single request, a single champion. Then we can link them together. We need to stop thinking about our stories and our organizations in isolation. We need to stop responding to crisis, and start advocating for prevention and change.
It’s time for a movement.
“Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organization. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.
It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again and they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know you who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.”
Excerpt from The Low Road by Marge Piercy
Click here to view and share the infographic for men and sexual assault.
Click here to view and share the infographic for women and sexual assault.