We met with Marybeth Seitz-Brown at a coffee shop near Union square.  Marybeth founded an anti-rape organization called SAFER. SAFER stands for Students Active For Ending Rape.

SAFER’s mission states: Strong college sexual assault policies are a key element in the prevention of sexual assault. Despite the well-known prevalence of sexual violence among college students, current college sexual assault policies commonly lack primary prevention efforts and due process procedures, exclude student input, traumatize survivors, and ignore disparate treatment of survivors and assailants based on gender, class, race, sexual orientation, and disability. By maintaining inadequate policies and resisting student demands for change, colleges create an atmosphere that condones violence, silences survivors, and reduces equal access to the benefits of a college education. Committed to social change through community mobilization, SAFER arms students with the tools needed to mobilize communities and make lasting change on campus.

We first met Marybeth at a lecture that we attended on rape and it’s effects, she was one of the panelist speakers.

We spoke with Marybeth on many different ways on ending rape.  One that stuck with me was the idea of preventing it before it happened. A way of doing this is raising your kids so they learn that if they don’t feel comfortable hugging someone, they don’t have to, but also, if they don’t feel comfortable being hugged, they don’t have to either.  This will later in life teach them about personal boundaries and yes means yes. She also told us that probably the most effective way we could get directly involved in the topic was by spreading the word in our community.

Overall, the meeting went really well, and we got the information we needed, if not more.