Survivor advocacy program to run out of grant funding in near future.
Supporting each other and the Ohio University Survivor Advocacy Program, F--kRapeCulture rallied together Friday on the Athens County Courthouse steps.
The group, committed to supporting survivors and changing the conversation on sexual assault, used the rally to raise awareness and share stories of survival. Additionally, the rally publicly supports the OU administration absorbing OUSAP when grant funding ends in October 2015, said Bekki Wyss, a senior studying English, former Post columnist and a member of F--kRapeCulture.
Wyss stated OUSAP is an important resource for this campus.
“It’s where everybody on campus sort of directs people,” Wyss said. “It’s really important to this campus to have a ... completely victim-survivor-centered response team.”
The program, Wyss said, should be supported by the OU administration. Wyss herself is a peer advocate through OUSAP.
“It’s just shameful that we’re even in this precarious position,” Wyss said after the rally. “We’d like to say as a student grassroots organization, we support the university absorbing the center and taking responsibility for it . . . funding it, giving it a more secure place on campus.”
Claire Chadwick, co-founder of F--kRapeCulture and a junior studying sociology and women and gender studies, said she also wants to see the administration putting resources towards OUSAP. Chadwick stated she was upset with OU President Roderick McDavis’ recent raise and $85,000 bonus and the condition of OUSAP.
“It’s crazy. McDavis just got this enormous raise and we’re fighting for something that is so vital in this community,” Chadwick said after the rally. “It’s really a travesty and it brings a lot of shame on this university.”
At the Aug. 29 meeting of the Board of Trustees, McDavis said he will begin co-chairing the Presidential Advisory Council on Sexual Misconduct within the next two weeks, according to a previous article in The Post.
Madison Koenig, a senior studying English in the Honors Tutorial College, spoke of the statistics of sexual assault and rape at OU, pushing for a change.
“We talk a lot at OU about being a ‘Bobcat family’ but we don’t act like a (expletive) family,” Koenig said during the rally. “If we want to claim that we’re a family, we need to step up and take care of each other.”
A bullhorn was passed around as survivors and supports shared their stories or outrage with sexual assault on campus and in society. Ryant Taylor, a senior studying creative writing, was one such supporter.
“Men can care as well. It’s not just something that women should fight for and worry about,” Taylor said. “I think it is a human issue and you have to try stop suffering in the world.”
Chadwick said this event allowed F--kRapeCulture a different way to empower survivors.
“I think this event is very special because it gives a forum for survivors to share their story and feel like they have a voice in a situation that silences so many,” Chadwick said.
