PEACE educates students on domestic violence
October is Domestic Violence Awareness month, and according to domesticviolence.org, “domestic violence takes place in our nation every minute of every day, occurring about every 15 seconds. Moreover, “3 out of 4 Americans know of another person that has, or is being abused by another individual, but a lot of times nothing is done about it.”
Luckily there is a group on campus hoping to tackle this issue, among others, at Minnesota State and the surrounding community.
The Peers Educators Acting for Change and Equality or “PEACE” is a Registered Student Organization that aims to educate others about sexual violence, prevention, bystander intervention and how to be an advocate for others.
Denise Crisafi is the Director of the Violence Awareness & Response Program (VARP) and the Advisor for PEACE. Crisafi has been an educator since 2006, and MSU is her third institution. She says having a peer-led organization is an effective and practical way to expand the Women’s Center’s advocational capacity.
“Considering I am a confidential advocate on campus, and one of very few, being able to steward prevention education, confidential advocacy, and outreach can be very difficult. … By having students do this work, it is more peer led, it is relatable, they can reach more of their fellow students in helping them understand how to get involved in this work.”
The first major meeting of PEACE took place last Friday. President Kim Chavez presided over the discussion of several items, including the possibility of doing their typical educational skits. The group traditionally goes into classrooms to educate students on consent and bystander education. They are moving away from the skits, however, but still plan to do other educational programming.
Moreover, PEACE will be partnering with VARP to table every week in October to recognize Domestic Violence Awareness month.
During the meeting, they also held officer elections. Chavez, who was serving as interim President, was elected alongside Sophomore Rhys Riggle to serve as President and Vice President, respectively.
Chavez says simply being open and authentic about the often-taboo subject helps.
“It is important to get the word out. It is important to talk about it so more people talk about it. What we are doing is informative,” she said. “What we are doing is also creating a safe space for people to come and join us and talk about these hard topics.”
Riggle said they were encouraged by the former director of VARP to join the program but was unable to due to time constraints. When asked what they hope to see PEACE do in the future, Riggle hopes to see the group do more advocacy and education. They say, it is “the whole point. It literally says peer educators. …. We’re here to educate. We want to teach people about things like bystander intervention and domestic abuse, domestic assault prevention and warning signs, and everything. So that when people need to use those skills… they know what to do and how to help.”
Caption: Picture of Denise Crisafi, who is the founder of the PEACE Recognized Student Organization (ALEXIS DARKOW/The Reporter).
Write to ben.livingston@mnsu.edu