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Students at Boulder’s Fairview High School walked out Friday to show support for survivors of sexual violence, two days after a former student was acquitted in a sex assault trial.
At 11 a.m. hundreds of students, most of them dressed in black to show solidarity with survivors, streamed out of the school and walked to the football field. There, they observed five minutes of silence in honor of survivors before several speakers, including Dr. Janine D’Anniballe, the director of Boulder’s Moving to End Sexual Assault.
April is Sexual Assault Awareness month, and D’Anniballe said one challenge has always stood in the way of seeking justice for victims of sexual violence.
“That challenge rests in this fundamental issue of not believing survivors,” she said. “Here we are in 2021, facing that same challenge.”
The phones at Colorado Crisis Services rang nonstop the day after 10 people were killed in a mass shooting at a King Soopers in Boulder.
The attack traumatized Boulder and rippled out to the rest of the state and country… Those emotions, heavy on their own, are compounded by other major events affecting the daily lives of Coloradans, said Janine D’Anniballe, the director of trauma services at Mental Health Partners, which serves Boulder.
“We’ve had the pandemic … then we’ve had wildfires, then we’ve had other mass shootings,” D’Anniballe said, referring to the shooting spree at Atlanta massage parlors on March 16. “You start layering these events on events on events,” she said. “There’s only so much people can take before we’re challenged to be resilient in the face of so much stress coming at us.”
There is no wrong way to feel while grieving and coping with the trauma experienced Monday, according to local mental health professionals.
Some might feel anxious or fearful; others might feel physically ill or numb and emotionless. All are valid responses when dealing with a shock trauma, which is what the larger Boulder community experienced earlier this week when a gunman entered the south Boulder King Soopers and killed 10 people.
“It was a rattling and intense and overwhelming experience,” Janine D’Anniballe said Thursday in a virtual conversation hosted by Mental Health Partners.
Beatriz Sanchez and Sophie Dellinger are Fairview High School graduates who are trying to push the Boulder Valley School District into reforming its approach to sexual harassment and assault, and are trying to raise awareness about what they say is a problematic culture in the high school. They’ve launched a website for BVSD survivors of sexual assault and have pushed district administrators to implement district wide training, which has stalled.
MESA is using “Sex: By Invitation Only” as an education and advocacy tool to inform listeners about issues of sexual violence. Podcasting provides a captivating way to keep sexual violence in the spotlight as we continue working to end this epidemic crime.
Episodes will be released monthly and will cover a range of topics related to sexual violence, including embracing sexuality, navigating boundaries, understanding consent, and dismantling systems of oppression. Tune in on PodBean , iTunes, or GooglePlay the first Friday of every month to hear dynamic stories and more.
Welcome to Episode 4 of “Sex: By Invitation Only.” April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM)! Listen to this episode to hear a bit about the history of SAAM and Denim Day and why Moving to End Sexual Assault (MESA) staff feel this month is so important.