Many sexual assault victims stay silent about their experiences, but Sexual Assault Awareness Month has raised voices all around campus at St. Edward’s University.

This year, the Health and Counseling Center has set up a full schedule of events for the month of April to offer support and resources to people who have been impacted by sexual violence.

For Sexual Assault Awareness Month, the Health and Counseling Center developed a multi-tiered approach to its prevention programming.

“We did this in hopes of providing information about the incidences of sexual assault,” said Sarah Porter, staff psychologist and program director of Wellness and Outreach Services.

Posters around campus early this month displayed pictures and stories of people who have been sexually assaulted.

Another event was the Clothesline Project, developed by the Health and Counseling Center.

The project is a vehicle for women affected by violence to express their emotions by decorating a shirt, according to the Clothesline Project website. Participants then hang the shirt on a clothesline to be viewed by others as testimony to the problem of violence against women.

“The Clothesline Project is a program started in Cape Cod in 1990 to address the issue of violence against women,” Porter said.

The Health and Counseling Center has also partnered with the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault for programming and poster series, Porter said.

Porter encourages students who are seeking more information about sexual abuse to contact Hilltopper HealthQuest, an online mental and physical health website for the St. Edward’s community.

 “While there are a number of informative articles, videos and quizzes, the Coping with Trauma and Maintaining Positive Relationships modules are particularly relevant because they discuss interpersonal violence,” Porter said.

The University Police Department has also joined the efforts this year and planned Rape Aggression Defense classes during April.

UPD officer Alice Gilroy, who is in charge of the classes, has always been involved with crime prevention and self-defense methods on campus.

“I’ve always being interested in teaching women how to protect themselves,” Gilroy said.

This year, UPD and the Health and Counseling Center received a grant from the Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation to share for the month’s events. This grant helped Gilroy offer the RAD  classes with adequate equipment and training.

“[Women] really need this course,” Gilroy said. “It’s a good course.”

Gilroy says she wants to make sure people understand the dangers of rape and sexual assault. She also said she does not want women to suffer through the stigma of always having to look behind their backs.

“Women have to think about this [sexual assault] all the time,” Gilroy said. “It’s not fair that it should always be on their mind.”