April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month
SAAM 2020 Highlights
CPAF kicked off our Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) activities just a few weeks after the Safer-At-Home orders were put in place in California. This forced us to really think about how to shift our focus from our usual in-person activities to online engagement. With heightened isolation and anxiety, loss of routines, and growing xenophobia targeting the API community due to COVID-19, we knew our response to SAAM would be just the beginning of working within the community to address the impact of trauma and violence in new ways.
We started with an original SAAM Cartoon.
On April 7th CPAF staff, as well as a few children and pets, joined others around the country for the Teal Day of Action to promote the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s ‘I Ask’ campaign.
Throughout the year, CPAF works with youth to be leaders in their community, to practice consent, and promote healthy relationships. We also support survivors of sexual assault through our 24-hour helpline, one-on-one para-professional counseling, a regular sexual assault support group, and community-based Healing Groups. During the COVID-19 pandemic, CPAF is committed to finding new ways to bring these activities online and be an effective and accessible resource in the community.
As part of the SAAM 30 Day Challenge, we shared poetry reflecting the experiences and healing journeys of sexual assault survivors on our Instagram account.
[Please note: the following images of our Instagram post include poetry on the subject of sexual assault that may be triggering.]
Later in April, CPAF’s own Shelter Program Director, Patima Komolamit, participated in a Town Hall on the State of Sexual & Domestic Violence in California hosted by California Coalition Against Sexual Assault (CalCASA) and the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence (CPEDV). Patima advocated on behalf of API survivors to participants including CA Attorney General Xavier Becerra and CA State Senator Hannah Beth Jackson. She highlighted the particular vulnerabilities of survivors during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the on-going work of organizations like CPAF to address the barriers facing API survivors in particular.
CPAF’s youth-centered programs hosted an, “Open Space Dialogue” virtual meeting for high school students to talk about how they were dealing with school closures and the pressures of the Safer-At-Home policy. Youth participants’ responses to a CPAF survey demonstrated that those pressures are compounding the impact of unhealthy or even violent relationships.
And in recognition of Denim Day youth leaders broadened CPAF’s social media horizons by helping to coordinate our first ever TikTok videos to help spread the message that “there is no excuse and never an invitation to rape“. Their creativity promoted not only greater awareness about the importance of consent and supporting survivors, but also opportunity for youth in the community to connect with each other.
If you’d like to follow our social media for information about this or any of our other trainings & workshops, activities or campaigns, such as United Against Violence, Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month, and Domestic Violence Awareness Month please follow the links below! We have two Instagram accounts—@CPAForg for general organization information and @violencefreeCPAF a youth-centered account.