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Where communication is key: Student-led 'Project Consent' aets people talking about sexual assault
▶ LARA KORTE
@Lara_Korte
W when Sara Li was a junior in high school, she felt
isolated after being sexually assaulted.
It was the summer of 2014, and Li was dealing with her own experience with sexual assault when she said she felt a sense of desperation. She knew she wanted to help others who might be in her position.
"I can't really go back in time and rewind time," Li said. "But maybe I can be this pillar of support for someone else."
That's when Li began the first steps in a campaign that would eventually become Project Consent, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness and educating people about sexual assault.
At first, Li said the campaign began on Instagram, where people would submit pictures themselves with the word "no" to show they stood against sexual assault.
The project began to pick up steam after a few celebrities joined in, and Li decided it was time to expand. She bought a domain name, built a website and soon had a multi-functional platform where people could share their stories and get involved in the fight against sexual assault.
Li is now a freshman at the University. Although Project Consent began in her hometown of Topeka, its contributors are now worldwide. Li said the 38-person team behind Project Consent consists of writers, graphic designers and interns from places like Texas, Canada,
the U.K. and South America.
The website features several articles by staff members, news about upcoming campaigns and a few videos that depict cartoon body parts giving a clear definition of their consenting slogan, "If it's not yes, it's no."
Although the project aims to make sexual assault easy to talk about, Li said she thinks for some people, it's a difficult topic to broach.
"I think that, as a whole, no one wants to talk about sexual assault," Li said. "I mean, we hear it so often, but we don't want to actually have a conversation about it because we're either desensitized to it or we don't want to accept that as a reality, and I think that's the biggest thing when discussing consent."
Besides the stigma around sexual assault, Li said one of the challenges has been what she regards as the politicization of the organization. She said many people have tried to write off Project Consent as liberal propaganda or feminist rants. When it comes down to it, however, Li said all she wants to do is have a conversation about consent and sexual assault.
"I think if you take away like all the weird attachments to it, we can have a conversation. Regardless of your own religious, political, whatever affiliation, we can talk about sexual assault as an issue that applies to everyone, as an issue that concerns everyone," Li said.
Inclusion is an important part of Project Consent, Lia said. Creating a community where anyone feels comfortable to share their story or get advice is at the center of their outreach.
"We want to make it as approachable as possible," Li said. "Because we don't think that talking about consent should have to be as scary; it shouldn't have to be difficult or intimidating to talk about; we should just be, like, 'You have the right to your own body, you get to decide whether or not you say yes or no, and if someone tries to force that on you, it's something that's definitely not your fault, and they should be held responsible for their actions."
Part of making the project approachable is having strong social media outreach. Mackenzie Cakebread, a student at the University of Toronto in Canada, is the communications director for Project Consent. Cakebread said she thinks social media is a great way to make a daunting topic like sexual assault more accessible.
"I think communication is so key and it can be hard
to bring up, so I think that's why we try to make it as easy as possible, so you know, that's what I love about social media is that I can go on and it doesn't have to be serious 100 percent of the time," Cakebread said.
But at the end of the day, we just remind ourselves that there's nothing we're trying to accomplish but trying to fight sexual assault."
"We like to say, 'We're not old men sitting behind a computer running a campaign," Cakebread said. "We know what's out there; we're going to teach it like that."
Cakebread said having a staff of high school to college-aged students makes communicating easier.
Sara Li freshman
The point of the social media campaign, she said, is not to give people the full course in consent and sexual assault but to instead get them thinking and get them talking.
"As long as there's still those little pockets of people being like, 'Hey, did you ever consider consent like this?' it just sort of continues that conversation that we facilitate, both online, in our articles and hopefully in person coming soon," Cakebread said. "I think that's one of the most important things that we can do."
Although Project Consent is mostly online right now, Li said the organization is looking at ways to expand its outreach. Li, along with other directors, have been invited
to college campuses to speak about their efforts against sexual assault. She said she will visit Indiana University and UCLA in the upcoming months to speak on the organization's behalf.
For now, Li said she plans to continue her work at the University and running the nonprofit, balancing her life as a student and executive director. Although it's a hard line to walk, Li said knowing she's making a difference for someone else makes it all worth it.
"It's very stressful," she said. "But at the end of the day, we just remind ourselves that there's nothing we're trying to accomplish but trying to fight sexual assault."
Edited by Sarah Kruger
Annie Grabowsky/KANSAN assault and rape culture
Annie Grubbsbøskj / KANSAN Sara Li is the founder and executive director of Project Consent, a global nonprofit dedicated to the fight against sexual assault and rape culture.
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