This week, SSH board member Manuel Abril distributed SSH materials in Tucson at an important conference. From Manuel:
“The Annual Youth and Peace Conference (YPC) is a unique Tucson event empowering youth to become courageous leaders and creative peace builders in our community. Youth violence is still considered by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to be an epidemic problem in America. Arizona’s youth violence and homicide rates are higher than the national average. I am an organizer of the Peace Conference but used my presence at the event to promote Stop Street Harassment’s mission as street harassment is often a young person’s introduction to the violence of public space. Public space is also the stage in which youth are called upon to internalize and enact their own marginalization when they curb or constrain their own movement to be safe.”
In mid-February, I spoke to a packed room at Centennial College in Toronto. Afterward, students could write pro-respect, anti-harassment messages on a poster for their campus.
