by Raechel Fittante
Staff Writer
Last Thursday, May 11, Sharon Orff, a representative of Project Sister in Pomona, visited the University of La Verne to discuss rape prevention with members of the Sigma Kappa sorority.
Project Sister is a rape crisis organization designed to educate women on ways of avoiding situations that may lead to potential rape and to provide help and emotional support to women who have been victims of rape or other crimes of a violent or sexual nature. The organization has chapters throughout the country.
Orff’s visit was an hour-long meeting that provided information to the 15 Sigma Kappa members in attendance. All aspects of rape were discussed, including reasons men rape, ways to avoid uncomfortable sexual situations, how to shed stereotypes of gender vulnerabilities and what some options of action are that a woman can take in the event of being raped.
Orff emphasized the responsibility a victim of rape has to herself to overcome the violation, with the clear knowledge that rape is never the victim’s fault. She also stressed that chances of being victimized can be drastically reduced by simple awareness.
“She had a lot of information; she told us circumstances that could lead to rape, and things to look for in a guy’s personality that may be signals of something not right,” said sophomore Adrienne Graeber, who organized the event.
The Project Sister chapter on Garey Avenue in Pomona serves the surrounding 700 square mile area, which includes La Verne, Claremont and Pomona. Mary Ritchie is the executive director of the Pomona headquarters, which currently serves over 24,000 people a year.
“Rape is about violence, about overpowering people who are vulnerable,” said Ritchie, who noted that, contrary to popular belief, only 20 to 23 percent of rapes are committed by strangers.
“Date rape is very common within colleges,” said Ritchie. “Without having been educated on self-awareness beforehand, a girl has a high likelihood of being raped her freshman year in college. Project Sister is needed to help prevent sexual assault from spreading by getting to all the schools we can reach in this area,” she said.
The Project Sister staff consists of five paid representatives and over 130 trained volunteers. They offer a variety of on-going counseling programs, as well as 24-hour phone counseling. Individual and group therapy are also available.
“The police or hospital will call us,” said Ritchie. “We stay with the victim through hospital examination and usually end up seeing the women through the stages of recovery.”
Each woman who comes to the center is assigned a trained volunteer to accompany them from their first encounters in the hospital and to any associations with the legal system later.
“The representatives are not there to tell the victim what is right or wrong,” said Graeber. “They are just there to help the victim through.”
The support provided by Project Sister ensures that the women do not struggle alone or place blame upon themselves.
Inner city assistance groups, such as the Assistance League of Pomona and the Working Woman’s Auxiliary, contribute tangible donations to Project Sister, including kits received by the women from support volunteers in the hospital. These kits are packages of necessities put together by the assistance groups containing clothes, sandals and personal hygiene items to be used in the hospital.
“They [the police] usually take the victims’ clothes for evidence,” said Graeber. “At least the kits give them something.”
Sigma Kappa recently donated “a small amount of money” to Project Sister, as well. Graeber said, “We just got all the girls together and donated what we could between us.”
At the conclusion of her presentation to Sigma Kappa last Thursday, Orff passed out pamphlets about rape prevention, and “phone numbers we could call for help in case anything ever happened to one of us,” said freshman Kendra Bridel.
“The lady representing Project Sister was really informative. She told us true stories about rape victims and she gave us symptoms of an abusive boyfriend or girlfriend. It was a really interesting program and had many facts that are helpful to know,” she said.
Project Sister’s 24-hour crisis hotline number is (909) 626-HELP.
