PUBLIC EDUCATION PROGRAM

The public education program is designed to inform and educate the community on all issues surrounding sexual violence.  The goals of the Public Education Program are:

  • To promote learning skills, to both men and women, that will identify and eliminate sexual assault by providing opportunities for thoughtful discussions, self-exploration and application of information
  • To provide up to-date information on sexual assault specific to the Ottawa area
  • To increase awareness of recent legal issues concerning sexual assault
  • To create an educational campaign that is directed at women and men of all ages, whether they are service providers, students, parents or interested individuals. This helps stress the importance that it is everyone’s responsibility to end sexual violence.
  • To create partnerships in the community and to provide opportunities for schools, crisis centers, church groups, and other community institutions and organizations to work together towards the common goal of eliminating sexual violence
  • To give out the crisis line number and information about our services, as well as the opportunity to dispel myths and challenge assumptions about gender roles in society.

Why this approach

Throughout history sexual assault was not talked about and was considered a shameful secret that we had to keep to ourselves. Due to the activism of women, rape was first talked about publicly in North America in the early 1970’s. Overtime, the laws, attitudes and language regarding sexual assault have changed. These changes reflect society’s growing recognition of how widespread the problems is, how traumatic these crimes are for the victims, and how difficult it is to report the crime of sexual assault to the authorities.

Overall, in the past two decades people have gained a clearer picture of the issue of sexual violence. Even though we have a long way to go before all women feel safe all the time, we are much more aware of the myths that have clouded the issue for so long. However, when faced with questions or comments on the issue of sexual violence, most people feel uncomfortable and do not know what to say. This discomfort and lack of information often results in inaccurate information being passed on. Also, because of sexist attitudes, which are still prevalent in our society, discussions, often turn into victim blaming and may also discourage others, form bringing the topic up again. More importantly this may discourage some from speaking about their experiences of sexual assault.

In offering presentations on sexual violence in the community and engaging people in discussions, we have noticed that many people  seem to have a good understanding of the issues on an intellectual level. For example, many young people will agree that the victim/survivor is never at fault, and most now know that an acquaintance rape is much more prevalent than stranger rape. However, this understanding may not translate into how they can change their attitudes and behaviors on a personal level.

 Moreover, many people recognize that communication is the key to preventing date/acquaintance rape, but are never given any opportunities to practice effective communication skills (verbal and non-verbal) or talk to each other about sexual activity, needs, discomfort and rights. Hence, opening-challenging discussions on sexual violence against women and inviting men and women, particularly youth to share their perspectives have had the most impact.

At the same time, we have expertise and knowledge on the subject and we contribute to these discussions by challenging myths on sexual violence against women and sexist stereotypes that exist in society. At the end of each presentation and workshop if we have done nothing else, we at least have started a dialogue and reflection on the issue, and hopefully that would have contributed to change on some level.

Becoming a Public Educator –Public Education Volunteer Training

The Ottawa Rape Crisis Centre offers a 22-hour training twice a year for women who want to become  public educators. To hear more about our volunteer public education training, email or call Andrea Ruttan at 613-562-2334 Ext:42