About the organization
RAINN (Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network) provides resources to sexual assault victims, works to prevent sexual assault, advocates for protection and funding to help survivors, and conducts media outreach to correct misleading or inaccurate statistics in the news.
Why does it appeal to me?
I just saw a trailer for the documentary Hunting Ground, about rape on college campuses. The description states that 1 in 5 college women are sexually assaulted. When I lived in Tallahassee, Florida, students at Florida State University referred to a local walking route as the "rape trail." It still makes my stomach turn. As a student at UNC, I had a rule where I never drank anything at a party that I didn't see opened. I was worried about getting roofied or otherwise drugged. Everyone thought I was paranoid, until all the girls I'd been with at a frat party got violently ill from the 'jungle juice' provided to them. It sounds crazy, but I recently - 15 years down the line - realized that what I remember as an uncomfortable, gross situation I was put in was actually sexual assault. I don't know why my brain wrapped a fog of 'he was a friend' or 'it was college' around it. But it's gotten me thinking a lot about cultural norms of what women and men are expected to tolerate, and the documentary trailer got me thinking even harder. I had a really interesting talk with my husband about the culture of sexual assault on college campuses, on the prevalence in alcohol in these events, on the lack of witnesses coming forward, on victim-blaming and on the difficulty of prosecuting sexual assault cases. It totally bummed me out. I don't know the ins and outs of this topic, and I am not a rape survivor, but I know that there is more we can be doing, culturally, legally and legislatively, to prevent and prosecute these terrible, life-altering crimes. Not least of which is ending the rape kit backlog of 400,000 in the U.S. That's a terribly large number. For more information on that topic, visit End the Backlog.
Want to learn more?
To learn more, click here. Are you a victim of assault or a family member of one? Get help here.
To donate, click here (my microdonation was done via Paypal, I don't know if the credit card version accepts microdonations).
Follow along with my challenge here on the blog or on Twitter with the hash tag #30daysofcharity.
Want me to see if your favorite organization accepts microdonations, or want me to feature it? Post a comment below.
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