The society has teamed up with FVRCC to provide consent training to Stirling University societies, and is hosting a fundraising quiz night with prizes donated by local businesses this Saturday
Student sorority Zeta Kappa Rho is taking the problem of consent and gender-based violence directly to student societies on campus at Stirling University.
The sorority aims to promote and use the training materials that the organisation offers to students, individuals, and companies alike, with training itself being delivered by professionals at the FVRCC.
They hope and aim to begin this training in the first week of March.
Issues on campus concerning sexual assault were brought to the forefront recently with a report published by Reclaim Stirling illustrating the unacceptable standards at Stirling University when dealing with both victims and perpetrators of sexual violence.
A survey of 148 current and former students and staff at Stirling University revealed that 53 per cent had experienced attacks including sexual harassment, assault or rape.
In addition, nearly one quarter said someone they know had been a victim.
The dialogue concerning consent is such an important part of helping to potentially reduce the incidents of sexual violence and gender-based violence by illustrating clearly what it consent, exploring boundaries and understanding the notion of crossing boundaries, and investigating the misinformation that many young people may have encountered surrounding the concept of sexual consent.
The sorority is aiming to get consent and sexual violence workshops directly to students, with a focus on asking societies to participate, whether this be holding their own fundraisers for the FVRCC, collaborating with the sorority to provide the training sessions to students, or promoting the events, everyone can get involved in some way.
President of the sorority Emma Hackney further illustrated the rational for consent and gender-based violence training:
“So much of the discourse around safe sex, consent and domestic violence is fundamentally flawed and misguided. Our training aims to tackle Domestic Abuse and Intimate Partner Violence, consent and boundaries, as well as how to respond to disclosures of sexual assault.
“The issue of GBV and consent is often over generalised to ‘yes means yes’ or ‘no means no’ ideas, which fail to clearly explain what constitutes a yes or no.
“Our training is there to reduce spaces for ‘misunderstanding’ and remove responsibility from victims to ‘keep themselves safe’ or bystanders to intervene.
“It is my view that the way we speak about consent and sexual abuse places the responsibility of prevention on victims and bystanders, rather than the person that is failing to respect these boundaries. We also wanted to provide education on responding to disclosures as, since so many of the supports available are hard to access and many people are reliant on friends and loved ones.
“This can be very isolating when it feels that those around you don’t understand or aren’t being there in the way you would like, so we wanted to provide a resource for people to be more equipped.”
The society is hosting a virtual pub quiz in order to raise funds for the organisation, and to say thanks for the services they provide. Local business have also made donations of prizes for the event.
The pub quiz is this Saturday 20 February, at 7:30PM, and all information concerning joining links and further details can be found at their event page here.
For more information please see the Sorority’s FB page and other socials for updates.
Feature Image Credit: Zeta Kappa Rho
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