This year, SWC's Empowerment Week focuses on Safety: Personal, Sexual, and Alcohol. Free t-shirts at the event!
Personal Safety: ResistAttack has donated 100 pepper sprays that we will be giving out for free.
Around 90% of sexual assaults occur between people that know each other. Although pepper spray cannot change the intent of an attacker, it is our hope that carrying this bottle will empower you. Being attacked is NEVER your fault. To speak with someone about relationship violence, sexual violence, or stalking anonymously, call UT 24-hour Telephone Counseling at 512-471-2255 or go to the Counseling and Mental Health Center on the 5th floor of the Student Services Building (SSB).
If we are out of pepper spray when you drop by, please visit our personal fundraising page through ResistAttack to purchase your own. 25% of the proceeds will go towards Social Work Council's mission to empower UT students.
If you don't want to purchase anything, you can still make a donation by clicking the "Donate" button.
Sexual Safety: UT's Voices for Reproductive Justice teams up with SWC to hand out condom goodie bags.
Special thanks to C.A.R.E. Program for donating female condoms and dental dams! Come out to learn more about how female condoms can work for you and your partner.
Learn more about female condoms by watching this video!
Alcohol Safety: UT's Alcohol and Drug Peer Educators join us on April 3rd to distribute free t-shirts and literature on knowing your limit. The literature will be available both days.
Denise helped me start t-shirt sales this week for Social Work Council. So far, so good! You can still pick one up Monday-Thursday from 9am-11am for 12 bucks in the School of Social Work.
Monday night we had a Social Work Council meeting, and I registered a whopping 10 people to vote. I need to reevaluate my plan so that I can help more people register!
We also discussed Project 2012. Social Work Council will be volunteering at Project 2012 February 25 at River City Youth Foundation during the morning shift. If you want to be grouped with us, put UTSWC in the organization column when you sign up.
In the meantime, think about volunteering at Inside Books Project with me next Sunday! I changed the date because everyone wanted to watch the Super Bowl.
I also left Whole Woman's Health on Monday after I found out my beloved boss would no longer be there. Since my "internship" was over, I was no longer allowed to observe counseling. I was still allowed to audit, but there wasn't much room to grow until I complete my degree. Plus, working at an abortion clinic wasn't as empowering as I had imagined. I would rather be doing something to prevent unintended pregnancies. Don't get me wrong, I still believe safe abortion should be accessible; I just think I would be happier if I could do more to prevent someone having to make/go through with that decision. So now I will be volunteering on Fridays with Planned Parenthood instead.
Tuesday
I had another meeting with the girls from Voices for Reproductive Justice. They have a lot of great ideas, and I'm excited to be a part of it.
Liz also had an idea for our shirts: she's going to make our logo a Longhorn that looks like a uterus, reminding me of this great passage in Tina Fey's Bossypants.
Hilarious.
Anyway, January 31 was also the day that Susan G. Komen decided to pull grant funding from Planned Parenthood. What a public relations disaster... turning breast cancer into a partisan issue over abortion.
Komen created a new rule that prohibits funding an organization that is under formal investigation by the government. Planned Parenthood was the only group out of over 2,000 that fell into this category. Creating rules like this is dangerous, as it gives government officials the opportunity to open investigations against organizations they don't agree with.
Several board members of SGK resigned after they learned of the rule in December, most notably Mollie Williams, their top public-health official.
Planned Parenthood also raised money. According to CBS, they have raised $3,000,000 between Tuesday and Friday.
On Friday, facing public scrutiny, SGK reversed it's decision, and announced they would reconsider funding grants for Planned Parenthood. Nancy Brinker, Komen's founder said that SGK wanted to provide grants to groups that provide mammograms. Planned Parenthood conducts breast screenings and mammogram referrals.
At first, Komen lost Planned Parenthood supporters, but by reversing their decision (well, now they will "consider" grants to PP), have they lost Right to Life supporters? What about all of those anti-choicers that donated A MILLION dollars after announcing they were defunding Planned Parenthood cancer screenings?
Oh yeah, and then there is this, just in the nick of time:
Wednesday
I have two classes that I have to do community action projects for. In my Communities class, we were assigned groups: I was assigned to "poverty." It felt too broad and overwhelming, but we decided to focus on low-income single mothers. In my Social Justice class we got to pick our groups, so my group will be researching unintended pregnancies (exciting for me, since that is what I'm really interested in).
These are the topics we cover when you come to an MOC!
I felt more comfortable teaching this one since I had been through the process before. Excited to do this for another year!
Afterwords, I called to schedule interviews with someone from: Section 8 housing, Trinity Center, and MAP for my low-income single mothers CAP. Pretty anxious to hear back from each of them...I hope I don't blow my interviews with them. Any (serious) tips for interviewing besides researching the org/person before you meet?
Then it was time for Senate appropriations. Senate appropriates money to student organizations twice a semester to fund academic endeavors. It's really long, but as a Financial Director you get to learn about a lot of events and even student orgs you didn't know about. Then you get to help decide how much funding each of those orgs gets.
There is another round coming up on February 16 if you are part of a student org that needs monetary help with an event.
Well, I think that's it. Check out this link if you are a SW student and need a laugh.
