Charity visits campus to highlight student safety
The School of Social Sciences EDI Director has organised a hugely successful event in conjunction with Active Communities Network charity to empower young people to feel safe when out in the city and within their relationships .
The organised a hugely popular event during Welcome Week in collaboration with the Charity . The Charity鈥檚 ethos is to empower young people to feel safe by using positive activities.
The Charity鈥檚 pop-up stand, which was on campus twice during the week, attracted a huge amount of attention at the Arthur Lewis Building. Staff from the Active Communities Network were available to provide advice, engage students in interactive activity and to give away free packs which included a keyring safety alarm, a spiking test kit, drinks cover, and safety information cards purchased by the School. The stand used several different games to highlight the different forms that problematic behaviour within relationships can take, and how to recognise and address this.
The event organised by Claire Fox, Equality Diversity & Inclusion Director for the School, shared her insights into the initiative: "The School of Social Sciences are thrilled with the buzz around the ACN pop-up stand this week. The interactive and fun way that the team has engaged with staff and students has made talking about issues of student safety and violence against women far more accessible. It is vitally important that we have these discussions on campus and provide education around safety, violence against women and girls, and managing safe relationships. Our collaboration with ACN helps us, as a School, to do this and compliments our student workshops on sexual consent and respectful behaviour which all of our first-year students attend in the first week of the academic year."
Rachelle McCurry, Director of Programmes, Active Communities Network provided insightful feedback into the Welcome week activity: 鈥淲e have been chatting to many students over the last two days, and we obviously don't know the students but they have said that our passion and our motivation to empower women has felt that it's easy for them to talk about their spiking experiences, but also their experiences of feeling unsafe in terms of being in a new city, using the likes of public transport or even sharing accommodation.鈥�
It鈥檚 important men are educated around women and that they are also educated about feeling unsafe as well. Everyone had the opportunity to take a safety kit.
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