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Associate Vice President for Student Services Jason Woods, and Take Back the Night Planning Committee members are pictured above with WIRC-CAA Victim Services Director Diane Mayfield, Macomb Mayor Mike Inman, WIU President Jack Thomas, and WIU Women's Center Director Janine Cavicchia signing the 2015 Take Back the Night proclamation. Back row (l-r) Brett Moody, Woods, Hollie Gleason, Lindsay Gleason and Nicole Royer. Middle row (l-r) Carol Smith, Gina Meier, Candace Wilson and Alondra Olvera. Not pictured: Megan Bowman, Bree Bracey, Kaitlyn Hirschbeck and Kennedi Kimbrough.
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Take Back the Night March Oct. 22 at WIU

October 16, 2015

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MACOMB - As part of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, the Western Illinois University Women's Center and the Western Illinois Regional Council-Community Action Agency (WIRC-CAA) Victim Services Program, along with numerous campus and community offices and organizations, will hold the 26th annual Take Back the Night (TBTN) march and rally Thursday, Oct. 22. This year's theme is "Straight Outta Silence: End the Violence."

The event is held each year to increase awareness of, and seek to end, dating and domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking and other forms of sexual and power-based interpersonal violence, as well as to remember and honor victims and survivors. For a number of years, Western's TBTN event has been the largest in the state of Illinois.

According to Women's Center Graduate Assistant and TBTN Planning Committee Chair Alondra Olvera, the theme and logo were created by students on the planning committee to embody the goal of empowering survivors and encouraging all who want to help end the violence to speak out and have their voices be heard.

The event will begin at 6:30 p.m. on the south side of Sherman Hall, with resource table displays by campus and community offices and organizations providing violence prevention efforts and support services to victims and survivors, as well as sales of T-shirts and light sticks.

The rally will begin at 7 p.m. with a reading of the proclamation signed by WIU President Jack Thomas and Macomb Mayor Mike Inman, followed by featured speakers, performers, a survivor speak-out and additional remarks by campus and community resource providers. Emcees for the event will be WIU students and Feminist Action Alliance members Bree Bracey, a 2014 graduate of Macomb High School, and Lindsay Gleason.

This year's speakers will include WIU alumna Angie Petersen (psychology '11) who was a student worker in the Women's Center and served as president of OASIS, the non-traditional student organization on campus, and Brett Moody, a second year graduate student in Western's College Student Personnel (CSP) program, who is the graduate assistant in the Center for the Study of Masculinities and Men's Development (CSMMD) and works with WIU's Bystander Intervention Project.

Following the rally, the march will go south to Adams Street, east on Adams, south on Charles Street, east on Calhoun, south on McArthur, east on Carroll Street, south on Lafayette, around the Courthouse Square, north on Randolph Street and end in Chandler Park, where the rally will continue. Anyone who would like to participate but is unable to walk the route may contact the Women's Center prior to the march to sign up to ride in a van that will be provided.

Participants may buy glow sticks for $1 each. TBTN T-shirts are $14 for WIU students and $15 for non-students. In addition to being available at the rally, these items are available at the Women's Center, Multicultural Center, room 209, and will be sold in the University Union Concourse from 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 20 and Thursday, Oct. 22.

The WIRC-CAA Victim Services agency provides free and confidential services in a safe environment for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault in Hancock, Henderson, McDonough and Warren counties. The agency's trained staff provides emergency services, advocacy, counseling, professional training and public education.

Victim Services and University Counseling Center staff and volunteers will be available at the march and rally to talk with participants if needed.

For more information, contact Olvera or Women's Center Director Janine Cavicchia at (309) 298-2242 or WIRC-CAA Victim Services at (309) 837-6622, or email womenscenter@wiu.edu.

Posted By: University Communications (U-Communications@wiu.edu)
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