A couple weeks ago, my sister Amara Stroud wrote a piece exploring the role that schools play in preventing and addressing sexual assault. After reading and reflecting on her comments, I’ve done some research on my own. I have to say, I’m impressed with what I’ve learned.
It turns out that there’s a Kentucky high school student named Celia Ziliak who’s stepping up to the plate. She’s part of the Prichard Committee Student Voice Team, which is doing some amazing work here in Kentucky. If you haven’t been following that organization, you should definitely check out some of the incredible stuff those kids are doing in our schools.
As part of her work with the Student Voice Team, Celia has launched a sexual assault education campaign called #(S)HeMatters, which she describes on Twitter as “a movement for sexual harassment education in Kentucky schools to reduce peer-to-peer sexual violence.”
As my sister Amara pointed out in her post, sexual assault is way more prevalent in public schools than we’d like to imagine. Last year alone, more than 4.5 million students experienced some sort of harassment, and that’s unacceptable. But exactly how pervasive is sexual assault in Kentucky schools? That’s exactly what Celia hopes to discover through her campaign.
How pervasive is sexual harassment in Kentucky schools? A new study designed by high school junior @celia_ziliak of @SHEMattersKY is hoping to find out. If you are a KY hs student, please help by taking her 5-min. survey: #schoolclimatechange #stuvoice <https://t.co/UQn3qoaQht> pic.twitter.com/AmRsqVi57r
— Prichard Committee Student Voice Team (@PCStuVoiceTeam) November 26, 2018
With the help of academic researchers, Celia has launched a survey about peer-to-peer sexual assault that can help us learn more about the problem, and this is exactly how you can help. Share Celia’s survey far and wide, and hopefully we can help her reach her goal of 1,000 responses. With enough participation, hopefully Celia and her colleagues can help us find new ways to prevent and tackle the issue of sexual assault in our schools.
Photo by Prentsa Aldundia, CC-Licensed.