Here at Reclaim The Campus, we had a very busy end to the year. We started off December sharing insights from our research to mark the UN's Day Of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence and highlight how our work ties into this. We then ended the year sharing self-care resources for our followers recognising that it was the end of a difficult year for most. Over December, we also made a video in collaboration with 'Girls In Policy' as they spotlighted us as part of their own contributions to the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence. We enjoyed collaborating with another group and are looking forward to doing more of that this year!
After our well-earned Christmas break, we have lots of exciting things planned. Talking of collaborations, we’ll be writing a guest post for 'Our Streets Now', to coincide with the launch of their new blog. They’re working to make public sexual harassment a criminal offence and will be sharing peoples’ experiences on their blog, to raise awareness. We'll share our blog post on our own social media when it's up, but do take a look at their work!
On our own social media, to coincide with the new year, we’ll be starting our new Dictionary Series on our social media channels. The purpose of this series is to break down some of the key points from our research for those who may not be familiar with some of the terms and policy ideas we've been using, define sexual misconduct and highlight how varied sexual misconduct policies are across institutions. We’ll also be focusing on issues of staff sexual misconduct over the month of January - which universities have policies on student-staff relationships and why such relationships are problematic. As with sexual misconduct in general, policies are key. They don’t guarantee that behaviour won’t happen, but they offer guidelines for students to seek help and for perpetrators to be punished. Policy enforcement is also crucial. We’ll be finding examples of how universities have dealt with such incidents.
Excitingly, we'll also soon be launching our updated website and Google submissions form, to make it easier for you to see our previous work and share your experiences of sexual assault at university. We particularly welcome contributions from men and people from racially minoritized backgrounds: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc6U2IcIVN-SKXq8Pek50KdL-pl1JqQ1_dQdZ2pUKsNmIfEiw/viewform
Happy New Year,
Love RTC