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The Education Outreach Program is an individual project of Rape is Never Justified that focuses around raising awareness, educating about rape, and educating on healing from a sexual assault.

Mission

1. Provide information for those who aren’t yet involved in the advocacy community for victims of sexual violence to be a voice for others while providing accurate information to help educate others.

2. Provide statistical information that helps all individuals in the community understand they are not alone or helps in the educating of those who’ve not yet been involved in the activism of the community. 

3. Provide information for those going through the healing process regarding various responses to a sexual assault that would help to further their healing process.

4. Create a magazine that reaches out to better and more specifically focus on various issues, concerns, or battles individuals face while highlighting a means of activism, support, and education for supporters and survivors alike. 

Our Facebook page will import rapid updates from this website and photo albums may be created to share various images or news stories. We encourage you to follow our Program closely, but we would like to provide a statement that some of the information here may be triggering. When you visit our Facebook page, you will only see snipits of posts made to the website. Once you click the link provided (“View Post”), you will be able to access the entire post. This is an effective means of using a trigger warning for all individuals. 

If you’d like to be a part of this team, you may email Josh@rnjstaff.com to get an application. 

Again, welcome to the latest RNJ Project!

As many of you know October is Domestic Violence Awareness month and earlier this week I participated in a very moving event that I wanted to share with all of you. Silent Witness is an amazing, powerful, emotional event which honors the lives of victims that have died as a result of domestic violence (this is specific to my state and my county). As part of SCREAM Theater, I performed in a domestic violence skit and simply to be part of this made me feel like I was a part of something so incredible. And this event made me think of the importance of people or more specifically the importance we can hold without even knowing it. We all play an important role.

One speaker talked about the important role we all play in these situations, whether it may be domestic violence or sexual assault, friends in particular may be crucial. People who are “professionals” are amazing people but what we find is that victims tend to tell their friends first, and this is completely understandable; we all look for comfort in people we know and trust. So while professionals have knowledge on the topic and may know the “right” things to say, it is non-professionals (friends, family) who need to be aware of these issues and educated about them as well.

In the skit, as we do in every skit we have a victim, a perpetrator, and their friends which include a victim-blaming friend (always pleasant to play), a pushy friend and a by-stander. I have played all friend roles and every time I do people in the audience seem so offended and astonished that anyone would act this way, yet we see it all the time. They seem to be astonished that some people think it is the victim’s fault if they are raped or if someone abuses them physically, emotionally, verbally, etc. Yet this is one of my favorite parts of the skit because as they are given the opportunity to ask questions, the audience can learn about these topics and as hard as it is may even see themselves in some characters and adjust their beliefs in a more positive manner.

I find that when a victim is looking for support, sometimes they receive just the opposite:

“get over it”

“maybe it’ll teach you a lesson”

“what did you do?”

“why did you _____”

The list can go on and on and include many other things and it is difficult to accept these things from our friends or people who are supposed to care about us and support us. So why would people say these things or worse? I find the answer in the audience of SCREAM skits, they may just not even realize what they are doing or may lack in education about the topic. I am in no way excusing this behavior but I am encouraging everyone to learn more about these issues and that is why I love what I do…it does cause change. And all of you are doing the same by being part of RNJ.

This was a different kind of blog because it is more of an offer to whoever is interested. I am willing to talk to people who may be having trouble talking to their loved ones, friends, or acquaintances about their experiences and may not know the “right” thing to say or better yet to not say the wrong thing. I know RNJ does have supporters who are victims or survivors but there also many people who want to advocate for this cause or know someone (maybe very close to them) who have experienced this. I am available to talk about this at any time.

Benny Del Castillo, Peer Advocate

As Benny stated above, she encourages full communication. The best route of private communication on the matter is through email. You may click the direct link above or her address is benny@rnjstaff.com