Friday, September 20th was a busy day for CASE! We spent the day at our Clubs Week booth and were so excited to see the positive responses and students who became members. Later in the evening we held our first event, a potluck-picnic at Shaw Millennium Park before Take Back the Night! We're so thankful for the members who came out, old and new. Each person's presence matters when it comes to showing solidarity at public rallies, so we are very proud that CASE members did their part to create such an amazing turnout for Take Back the Night. 

Photos by VP Events Tonie Minhas.

Our club president Ellen Bolger had the opportunity to talk with David Gray on the CBC Calgary Eyeopener this morning about CASE and our mission to provide consent education to students in Calgary, both secondary and post-secondary. We are thankful the CBC gave us the opportunity to go into detail about our goals and why we believe our work is so important. Check out the interview here.

CASE was recently featured in the Calgary Metro newspaper. While we are excited that the mainstream media is talking about rape culture, we are also a little disappointed the focus was on short snippets of rape culture evidence instead of focusing on positive activism, which is what we are all about. We believe that sexual assault prevention should focus on creating a culture where consent is asked for and respected instead of "he said, she said" arguments. Hopefully the Metro article will draw more people's attention to the positive work we are trying to accomplish. 

You can check out the article here.

Orientation Week 2013 has come to a close and we're thrilled for the many positive responses we received at the Orientation Week Resource Fair. We had a bucket full of buttons and completely ran out of them so we're excited to see students wear them around on campus. We also handed out flyers that explained what consent is and why it is essential in sexual relationships. The dessert images were created by the talented illustrator and animator Morgan Shandro for our "Consent is Sweet" campaign.  We would also like to thank the Calgary Sexual Health Centre for lending us their button maker!

We had a largely positive response - except for a small handful of young males who openly laughed at our display. This is discouraging and we hope this attitude quickly changes. Considering the recent news that students from Saint Mary's University in Halifax and across the country at the University of British Columbia have been documented chanting endorsements of sexual assault, campus safety is an issue all students should take seriously.

If you have encountered any chants, activities or slogans that perpetuate rape culture at the University of Calgary, please get in touch with us. Email us here so we can work together to make campus a safe space for everyone.

We're looking forward to a great year! We have plenty of events planned so follow us on Facebook and Twitter to keep up. You can also subscribe to our mailing list for volunteer opportunities here.

The CASE Club has been featured in the News section of the University of Calgary's Student Newspaper, The Gauntlet. Our very own President and VP External, Ellen Bolger and Emily Leedham, were interviewed.

Click the thumbnail below to read the article:

We are excited to announce the completion of our sponsorship package! We have ambitious goals and an important message to bring to students - and we need your help! Here are a few excerpts from the package that help explain who we are and what our plans are for this year:

"According to the Sexual Assault in Canada report for 2004 and 2007, both secondary and post-secondary students are at a higher risk of experiencing sexual assault because their lifestyle and environment allows them to interact with many other individuals at any given time. The report also  indicates that “sexual assault incidents are most likely to occur when a victim and offender are known to each other,” meaning that assailants are often friends or acquaintances of the victim. For this reason, we believe in educating students about issues of sexual assault and consent.

Consent is defined as “permission for something to happen or agreement to do something.” We believe that if students learn the importance of open communication and requesting consent at every stage of sexual activity, cases of acquaintance sexual assault can be greatly reduced. Our campaigns throughout the year will focus on consent as not simply the absence of a “No,” but an enthusiastic “Yes!” free of coercion. We believe focusing on an enthusiastic “Yes” helps clarify what a consensual sexual relationship looks like."

"These dessert images were created by Morgan Shandro for the University of Calgary Consent Awareness & Sexual Education Club’s “Consent is Sweet” campaign. The campaign is designed to educate and encourage students, both secondary and post - secondary, to ask for consent in their sexual relationships and recognize that sex without consent is sexual assault. The campaign is non-gendered and the dessert imagery aims to evoke optimistic feelings about creating healthy sexual relationships. These images, as well as information about consent, will be featured on posters, pamphlets and buttons that will be distributed on campus and select Junior High school classrooms throughout the year."

Contact VP External Emily Leedham for sponsorship opportunities at leedham.emily[at]gmail.com.

"Morgan Shandro is a former illustrations editor for the Gauntlet student newspaper and is currently in her final year of a Bachelor's in English at the University of Calgary. Once she has graduated, she aspires to combine what she has learned there with her interests in illustration, comics, and animation. She is also a feminist who is eager to help the world advance its understanding of gender politics and equality. For information about illustration commissions, please contact her via her website."

Thanks to everyone who helped out with our Bermuda Shorts Day Consent Awareness Campaign, especially the Women’s Resource Centre! We put the campaign together in a small amount of time with a few resources, but with your help we hope to increase the scope of these campaigns next year to reach as many students as possible. We will be doing a TON of work over the summer to hit the ground running for University of Calgary’s Orientation Week in the fall, and, hopefully take our message to Calgary Junior High schools as well. Here’s a couple snapshots from the BSD campaign album on our Facebook page.

In two days, with the help of the Women’s Resource Centre, we made over 150 buttons and attached them to flyers that discussed consent, what it is and why it’s important.

We wrote fun and helpful messages on blackboards and chalkboards around campus the day before BSD to spark interest and encourage awareness about consent.

Our team also put up posters such as this one – available at the U of A Students’ Union website– on posterboards in MacEwan Hall. We also posted some from the Don't Be That Guy Campaign.

And finally, we made our flyers and consent messages easily shared on Facebook and Twitter and received very positive feedback.

But there is much, much more work to be done to truly change the culture on campus and in our city to make conversations about consent commonplace and expected. Keep in touch with us via Facebook or Twitter, or purchase a membership at one of our events this year to keep up with upcoming CASE projects!