April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. The color associated with this awareness is teal.

According to the Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network. -1 out of every 6 American women has been the victim of an attempted or compelted rape in her lifetime (14.8% completed rape; 2.8% attempted rape).

-17.7 million American women have been the victims of attempted or completed rape.

-9 of every 10 rape victims were female in 2003.

Tyrell Allen, a Diversity Mentor at the University of Northern Colorado wanted to organize an awareness program for this issue. Diversity Mentors work for Housing & Residential Education as peer mentors who facilitate conversations around social justice. Working with a fellow Diversity Mentor and a plethora of volunteers Tyrell was able to coordinate a truly impactful program.

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Tuesdays in Teal is an awareness program for the University of Northern Colorado Community around the issue of sexual asault. Tyrell Allen and Helly Hernandez, the event organizers recruited approximately 50 volunteers.

These volunteers wore Teal T-Shirts which said one of three things on the front, "Tuesdays in Teal", "Consent Turns Me On", or "Consensual is the New Sensual". The Back of the shirts included statistics about sexual assault and contains the tag line: It impacts UNC Students, Faculty, Staff and their friends, family, classmates, etc...

Many folks wore these shirts all day inspiring comments from their classmates and encouraging conversation about Sexual Assault.

Another component to the program was that about 20 of the volunteers held a sign during passing periods in well-frequented areas. These volunteers were frozen holding signs about sexual assault specifically among college students and residents of Colorado. This helped make the issue even more salient for many students, faculty, and staff.

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This program had several goals:

1. To show UNC's concern for Sexual Assault... especially during Sexual Assault Awareness Week

2. To start conversations about consent, what consent looks like, and how important it is

3. To show a visible number of UNC students that want to end sexual assault, educate their peers on consent, and want to be a support network for victims of sexual assault.

Although the goals of this program can be hard to evaluate in exact numbers, this program's goals were accomplished based off of the number of positive conversations, comments, and head-nods recieved for those wearing the shirts or holding the signs.

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This program has a few positive and lasting effects which include:

1. Continued conversations about sexual assault. In order to end/begin to limit something as large and overwhelming as sexual assault, it is necessary for this to be a consistent conversation. By braning the program as Tuesdays in Teal, the program has the ability to live on every Tuesday. Each Volunteer got to keep their shirt, so everytime they wear it they have the opportunity to create greater awareness.

2. Showing a student-led concern with these issues. By having students address this issue, we are showing that it is truly an issue for our whole community.

This program also had the opportunity to empower many of its participants. Many of the volunteers were women, who expressed afterwords that they felt incredibly moved participating. It as well gives the opportunity for men to show their support as allies. Although Sexual Assault does not only happen to women, the bulk of its victims are women and its perpetrators are men. By giving men the ability to be allies, we are addressing the problem in a greater way.

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This program was incredibly successful. Although it was a costly program, it did have a huge impact on our campus. At least 50 people directly benefitted form the program through volunteering and another 300-900 benefitted as well from reading the signs and t- shirts.

There is no way to measure how important this program is except by student commentary. This program is essential in creating a University community that fights for all its members' rights and is active in creating change.

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This program could be adapted to other campuses in several ways:

1. Find funding. Your Women's Studies Program, Assault Survivors Advocacy Program, Counseling Programs, Student Activities, or Housing Departments might sponsor t-shirts and signs.

2. Design the t-shirts. Get the statistics for how Sexual Assault impacts your school, this is really important in creating saliency for the program.

3. Create A Sign-UP Genius to organize volunteer times/locations. This is really helpful as it is a clear and concise means of communication. Also it allows you to email all the volunteers at once which is helpful for any detail changes or necessary things like sign/t-shirt distribution sites.

4. Be aware of the weather. It rained at one point during our program. This has the potential to make volunteers miserable and to ruin signs. When it rained during our program though, people were almost extra sympathetic to our cause and were more likely to read our signs.

Truly make this program your own though. It has the opportunity to do so much good. An alternative to this program is Thursdays in Black which is a program that has been adopted on many college and University campuses.

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