Editorial
Events raising awareness of domestic violence, abuse call for examination of growing problem in area
April 25, 2013
Walk a Mile in Her Shoes, Turn It Up, and Take Back the Night are all events either on the UW-River Falls campus or in the River Falls community being held to raise money for the Turningpoint organization and other groups to help prevent domestic and sexual assault.
These events are designed to be a fun, memorable, time for those who attend, while still raising money for an important and good cause. On April 23, the Walk a Mile in Her Shoes event raised $1,170 for the Sexual Assault Response Team of River Falls and for the Sexual Assault Resource Agency in Red Wing, Minn., according to the Falcon Daily.
We certainly commend the UWRF football team for taking point in this event by having almost the entire team walking a mile in high heels to help raise money for the event.
In addition, Turningpoint is raising money to help it expand into a new space so that can help more people, some of whom they have had to turn away in their current space.
However, we do not think that it is a good thing that Turningpoint and these other organizations have to expand and raise money. Domestic and sexual assault is clearly a problem and, since organizations like Turningpoint have to expand, it seems to be becoming a larger problem.
The organizations should be shrinking, not expanding.
Events like these are supposed to help raise awareness about these problems as well. What good is awareness if nothing is done about the problem?
Helping to get rid of domestic and sexual assault starts with individual people working to get rid of the problem in their life and then expanding to help others.
Going to these events is a great way to support these organizations and have a fun time as well. However, instead of just helping to raise money for the issue, anyone and everyone can do their own part in their daily lives so that organizations, like Turningpoint, do not need to expand.
Instead, we should be helping to fix this problem so these organizations can shrink because they aren’t needed, rather than have to expand because they are needed.