by Lizzie Hope and Gemma Linfoot-King
The ‘All About Respect’ project exists to prevent sexual violence, harassment, and abuse, and to promote the importance of healthy relationships, consent, and respect among students in York. We have been working closely with students to help create material to promote our message, and are currently seeking creative writing, blog content, art work, or anything else creative to use alongside our leaflets and posters.
‘All About Respect’ is the new name for the Building Healthy Relationships Project, a student-led collaboration based at York St John University that works in partnership with Survive, IDAS (Independent Domestic Abuse Services) and York College. So far in the project, we have asked students at York St John and York College to complete a survey and partake in focus groups, in order to gain an insight into their experience and understanding of healthy and unhealthy relationships. By drawing on the common themes of each focus group, and elements of the survey, we have been able to establish particular areas that the project needs to address such as sexual harassment and emotional abuse. The project is currently seeking students that would be interested in using their skills to produce a piece of work that creatively reflects these themes.
If you are a student with skills in creative writing and would like get involved in our campaign, you could submit a piece of writing in the form of flash fiction, a short story, poetry, scriptwriting, experimental writing, or any other forms you wish to explore. We feel that it would also be really valuable to have something alongside creative writing that visually represents some of our themes, and so we would like to ask students with skills in art, drawing, illustration or photography to produce a piece for the project.
This brief is not exclusively for art or creative writing students. We are very open to other forms of creativity as it would be great to communicate the projects messages in different ways, so we can engage with students through a variety of creative platforms. We really encourage all students to get involved in the project, so if you have skills in other creative areas please get in touch with any work or ideas. We want to hear from everybody!
Feel free to submit some work you have already completed if it is relevant to the area of sexual violence, harassment or abuse. For every creative submission we receive and are able to use as part of the project we will reward the creator with an amazon gift voucher as a way of thanking you for your time and efforts. If you would like to send a submission, please direct it to the Healthy Relationships email address, healthyrelationships@yorksj.ac.uk, with the subject title ‘Creative Submission’. If you are not ready to submit some work but would like to share an idea, or need some inspiration, we are happy to help and will respond with some guidance! If you would prefer to submit anonymously, please make this clear when you submit your work and we will ensure you name is not on your work and you remain anonymous. We welcome submissions as early as possible but we will accept work up until 5pm on Friday 23rd February, 2018.
Your work may be added to The Building Healthy Relationships Project blog which will be shared on social media platforms and displayed around campus during our campaign plus other events related to the project. As such, please be aware that by submitting your work to us, your work will be visible and accessible to all.
We appreciate the nature of this topic is extremely sensitive and would urge you to seek support if you have been affected by sexual violence, domestic abuse or harassment, now or in the past. Support is available from:
- York St John University Welfare Advisors: Appointments can be arranged by inquiring at the Student Information Desk in Holgate, emailing wellbeing@yorksj.ac.uk or calling 01904 876 477 and asking for a welfare appointment.
- Survive: Support for survivors of rape and sexual abuse in York and North Yorkshire. Helpline: 01904 642 830
- IDAS (Independent Domestic Abuse Services): Specialist charity in Yorkshire supporting people affected by domestic abuse and sexual violence | Helpline: 03000 110 110 | Email: info@idas.org.uk | An online help chat is also available on their website: www.idas.org.uk/
- Bridge House: A sexual assault referral centre for North Yorkshire and the city of York | Tel: 0330 223 0362 (9am-5pm) 24-hour answer phone | Out of Hours Help Line: 0330 223 0099 | Website: www.turntobridgehouse.org
We look forward to receiving your creative responses. Should you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact us at healthyrelationships@yorksj.ac.uk