Abuse victims raise awareness at LBCC’s Clothesline Project

In recognition of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, students decorated t-shirts that detailed their personal experiences with abuse in an effort to celebrate survivors and educate the public at LBCC’s Clothesline Project event on Oct. 20. 

Young Woman’s Christian Association and LBCC Health Services hosted the event at the Liberal Arts Campus. 

There was a lack of attendees at the event, which meant to provide students with mental health resources and support. 

Staff members at the event gave the attendees who did show up the option of customizing their own survivors t-shirt. 

Every t-shirt color symbolizes the type of violence each survivor endured, and participants would have been given the opportunity to write a message on their shirt and hang them up with past Young Woman’s Christian Association (YWCA) clothesline projects, but not many visitors attended. 

^{Community educator and outreach coordinator Crystal Hendriks hangs up T-shirts made by survivors during the Clothesline Project event on Oct. 20. The event was held in recognition of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. (Abigail Soto Godinez)}

Community Educator and Outreach Coordinator Crystal Hendriks spoke about the community’s involvement in directing the attention away from domestic violence survivors to abusers. 

“It’s like embedded in our culture to blame someone for the abuse that’s happened to them, so shifting away from saying this like ‘okay well that person shouldn’t have been drinking’, ‘that person shouldn’t have been in that relationship’, ‘they should’ve known the signs’ to ‘that was never the survivors fault, that survivor deserves to be believed and supported’,” said Hendriks.

Hendriks spoke about her healing journey after experiencing domestic violence and how it influenced her decision to become an advocate. 

“Healing didn’t always go well. With the help of the community who believed me, I was able to get access to therapy,” said Hendriks. 

“I am a survivor, and the reason why I got into this work as a sexual assault and domestic violence advocate was to not only kinda learn the reasons for abuse and why it shows up in our community, but also learn different healing practices and share them with others,” Hendriks added.

LBCC Medical Assistant major Andrea Villa explained the types of domestic violence individuals endure and how the community’s rejection can affect a victim’s likelihood to share their story. 

“It can come across in many ways cause domestic violence is not only physical, it can be financial. I saw that a lot with parents like ‘oh you’re not earning money so what’re you gonna do without me’. It can also be like emotional abuse, psychological abuse,” said Villa.

“It’s harder for people to believe in those types of situations because it’s you said she said and just like your word has value so does his, and I feel like that’s why a lot of people don’t even wanna speak up because they’re afraid of like speaking up and nothing happening,” added Villa.

Villa also shared her perspective on the Cornell Seven Case, which alleges that Cornell University knew about a students’ rape case on campus and did nothing to hold the accusers accountable.

“I think they could’ve investigated at least what Jane Doe was saying. I mean 57 other students that are, like, of age knew about that and they did nothing, people like counselors and stuff they knew and they also didn’t do anything about it and I feel like the approach should be not trying to hide what men do,” said Villa.

LBCC viking expresses concerns over how universities are meant to properly regulate parties. 

“Well I don’t know too much about like the details about what happened so then from my understanding it’s like a frat party thing and I don’t know to much about frats so I don’t know if that’s directly coordinated to like schools and stuff, what I know about frats is they just party so how are they gonna regulate a party you know,” said Diego Zepeda, culinary major.

Hendriks highlights the value of having Domestic Violence Awareness events on campus to educate students on boundaries.

“Often sexual assault, especially on college campuses, is kinda a taboo topic. Something that not a lot of people know or want to speak about so when campuses like LBCC model what it’s like to have Domestic Violence Awareness month where they’re teaching about boundaries and power and control, that goes a very long way for preventing future harm and violence,” said Hendriks. 

Hendricks provided a possible solution that Cornell could’ve implemented to prevent domestic violence on their campus. 

“If Cornell could do something different it’d be to enhance different education practices, whether that’s partnering with organizations like YWCA or domestic violence shelters to bring their resources to campuses as much as possible…,” said Hendriks.

Hendriks expressed a message to survivors, those who identify as victims and those who have been impacted by violence in the community.

“They are not alone, that there are so many people who are out there to support them and who maybe in their daily lives, maybe the survivor isn’t experiencing people who believe and support them, but there are advocates who do,” said Hendriks. 

Healthy Vikings will host a Domestic Violence Awareness Month virtual workshop called Domestic Violence 101 on Oct. 23 from noon to 1 p.m. via Zoom.

The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 800-7990-7233