One of the conversation jars of #LetsTalkAboutYES. Photo Jeroen Berkvens Amnesty International and #LetsTalkAboutYES are running a nationwide Action Week to encourage universities to sign a manifesto against sexual violence.
Text: Julia Westhuyzen
The Wageningen branch of #LetsTalkAboutYES (LTAY) is participating in the campaign. In Orion, LTAY members are there in person, asking passing students and staff to send a card to the Executive Board talking about their personal experience of this issue and calling on the board members to sign the manifesto.
By signing the manifesto, organizations promise to work to prevent sexual violence, support victims, and include this commitment in their policies.
In Aurora, Orion, the Forum and Leeuwenborch, there are ‘Consent Chit Chat Jars’ filled with slips of paper with statements and questions on them about sexual consent, limits and pleasure, which you can use as conversation starters. In Orion, LTAY members chat with students and staff. ‘Each person who comes to talk to us is different,’ says Jeroen Berkvens of the action group. ‘And because the topic is relevant to people from all cultures, genders and sexual preferences, we try to enter into conversation with an open mind and put the people who talk to us at ease.’
The reason for drawing up the manifesto is a study by Amnesty International which found that 11 per cent of women and 1 per cent of men report having been raped as students. #LetsTalkAboutYES wants to get a conversation going about consent, and with this campaign to prompt the Executive Board to sign the manifesto. WUR has not signed it to date because the organization is working on its own action plan.
Other activities that were planned for this week, such as a Storytelling Night, have had to be rescheduled due to the new Covid measures.
