SAPHE: Sexual Aggression Peer Hotline and Education

The SAPHE Hotline is closed for the summer, but we will be returning again in the fall! Use this link to find information on resources: https://www.instagram.com/p/CD1QOoEnDGW/?igshid=gpe08ow2tn1l

Come visit SAPHE: Sexual Aggression Peer Hotline and Education today tabling for

Only one day left to apply! https://linktr.ee/SAPHERecruitement

The application to become a member of SAPHE is live with one day left! Sexual Aggression Peer Hotline & Education (SAPHE) is a compassionate group of Tulane students dedicated to supporting survivors of sexual violence and addressing r**e culture. The purpose of SAPHE is to provide resources and support to the Tulane community through a peer-run 24/7 hotline while working to dismantle r**e culture on campus through workshops, events, and outreach.

SAPHE is currently accepting applications through their Wavesync page NOW through March 14th at 11:59pm. Interested individuals can access the application and more information here: https://linktr.ee/SAPHERecruitement.

Interested in working to address and prevent sexual violence on campus? Apply to be a member of SAPHE (Sexual Aggression Peer Hotline and Education)!

What is SAPHE? SAPHE is a compassionate group of Tulane undergraduate students dedicated to supporting survivors of sexual violence and addressing r**e culture. The purpose of SAPHE is to provide resources and support to the Tulane community through a peer-run 24/7 resource hotline while working to dismantle r**e culture on campus through workshops, events, and outreach.

What will I do as a SAPHE? As a SAPHE member, you will receive 40 hours of training in interpersonal support, trauma-informed care, empathy and active listening, Title IX, campus reporting options, and power-based violence. SAPHE members attend weekly meetings, take monthly hotline shifts, offer survivor support at events, and lead educational workshops such as “Consent Conversation,” “Sexual Violence 101,” and “Rape Myths and Victim Blaming.”

Why should I join? SAPHE occupies an essential role on campus as Tulane’s only peer-run sexual violence response organization. Members gain meaningful and practical work experience by providing support and resources to individuals in the Tulane community.

If any of this sounds interesting to you, consider applying to SAPHE through our WaveSync page by 11:59 pm on Sunday, March 14th. More information can be found here: https://linktr.ee/SAPHERecruitement

We look forward to meeting you and reviewing your application!

@SAPHERecruitement Linktree. Make your link do more.

The SAPHE application is live! Visit https://linktr.ee/SAPHERecruitement to access the application and learn more about our organization/recruitment process. We are so excited to bring a new class of passionate empathetic Tulanians into SAPHE!

Are you or anyone you know interested in applying for SAPHE? Fill out our interest form to be notified when our application goes live!

SAPHE Applicant Interest Form Interested in joining SAPHE? Our new member recruitment process begins this Spring. Sign up to receive an email when our application goes live on WaveSync! You can find more information about our organization and the work we do on our WaveSync page and website: https://campushealth.tulane.edu/saphe....

It’s that time of year! The SAPHE Hotline is open and fully operational. The SAPHE hotline is a 24/7 peer resource hotline run for folks in the Tulane community who have been impacted by sexual violence. Our hotline operators provide a listening ear and optional resource recommendations. Please spread the word - no call is too small!

Dear Tulane Community,

Reflecting on the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Nina Pop, Modesto Reyes, and countless others, SAPHE is taking the necessary and long overdue time to reflect on our own anti-Blackness and systemic white supremacy. As an organization composed of predominantly white, cis-gendered women at a predominantly white institution, we take ownership of the harm we have created and perpetuated to the Black community by not speaking out sooner about current events, but also via the internal culture of SAPHE. SAPHE acknowledges that the American criminal legal system and the police have continually systematically harassed, criminalized, and murdered Black people. We also acknowledge the generations of systematic power-based violence committed against Black people, particularly Black women and trans* people, by white people as a form of oppression.

As an organization that seeks to address and prevent sexual violence, we acknowledge that the violence we observe today is a direct consequence of the systems of oppression and anti-Blackness that were designed and continually reinforced by white people, including ourselves and our white members. Sexual violence has been weaponized against the Black community since the beginning of slavery and the development of American institutions and society. SAPHE must take ownership and accountability for America's history of anti-Blackness, as well as our own. SAPHE must challenge the ways in which white women have and continue to benefit from white supremacy at the expense of Black liberation.

In an effort to combat anti-Blackness both on Tulane's campus and in our organization, we want to acknowledge and take full responsibility for SAPHE's problematic history. It is imperative that we reflect on our privilege on Tulane's campus and our past failure to actively support survivors of all identities. The intersectionality of sexual violence cannot be understated, as it is situated in broader structures of power and systems of oppression. We are not exempt from these power structures, and our membership is not reflective of all survivors of sexual violence. This manifests as a lack of cultural competency and has alienated BIPOC from using our resources.

Particularly, this was brought to our attention last year, when we engaged in a CEA facilitation where we received criticism from our peers about SAPHE's lack of attention to BIPOC communities. Rather than acknowledging and internalizing SAPHE's lack of inclusiveness, we reacted with white fragility, denial, and defensiveness. Additionally, we showed and continued to be ignorant of the racist history of SAPHE. After realizing how little we knew about the history of our organization, we went on to contact previous members, who informed us of SAPHE's previous focus on the primarily white Greek community and its lack of attention to BIPOC. The amount of time it took for us to acknowledge this incident is indicative of the privilege, white supremacy, and white fragility that still exists within our organization. Moving forward, we will take accountability for systems of oppression propagated by our organization and accept continuous criticism to better our organization's ability to support Black survivors, as well as survivors of all identities.

With an understanding of the anti-Blackness and white supremacy that has operated within SAPHE and an acknowledgment of our necessary role in dismantling these systems of oppression, we as members of SAPHE are committing ourselves to undoing racism within our organization by creating action items that we will take throughout the summer and the school year. This list of actions is not exhaustive but is instead a living document that we can amend and supplement to ensure that we are combating white supremacy at every level within our organization.

- Support and uplift the work and leadership of Black organizers on campus, specifically Les Griots Violets and their organizing around the equity fee
- Attend Community Engagement Advocate facilitations related to the history of racism within New Orleans, implicit bias, white supremacy, and power-based violence
Create a Diversity, Inclusivity, and Equity Committee within SAPHE to ensure that these action items are actually put into place
- Work to build a stronger community among ourselves so that we may do this work authentically and accountably.
- Implement a continuing education program where we assign an article or video related to racism and anti-racism activist every week and discuss during our weekly meetings
- Partner with other organizations on campus that are committed to anti-racist work to create a coalition and continue our education and activism
- Establish rules around language to use in our social media posts and resources provided to survivors to ensure that whiteness is not centered and our language is inclusive
- Look into funding and hosting an Undoing Racism workshop with the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond
- Host a de-escalation training so that we can begin the work of moving away from using TUPD and NOPD as resources that are provided to survivors
- Review the resources that we provide to survivors to ensure that they are inclusive and account for the ways in which sexual violence intersects with other systems of oppression
- Review of bylaws to ensure that they uphold our commitment to anti-racist activism, inclusivity, diversity, and equity
- Work in conjunction with the Diversity, Inclusivity, and Equity committee when working with the Sexual Violence Prevention and Response committee to ensure that our sexual violence work is not failing in being anti-racist
- Create an anonymous Google form that will be provided on our social media pages so that individuals, organizations, and the community can submit concerns and comments throughout the year and hold our organization accountable

While we understand that this list is not complete and does not include every action that we could take in dismantling white supremacy within our organization, we believe that these actions are essential in beginning the necessary work that is required to make SAPHE more equitable and inclusive. We have provided this list so that we can hold ourselves accountable and follow through with these action items in a meaningful and intentional manner. We plan to continually engage with and add to this document to ensure that these action items are implemented, and new ideas on how to be anti-racist are uplifted and engaged.

SAPHE is committed to reaching our full potential as a resource for the Tulane community. To that end, SAPHE acknowledges its compliance with anti-Blackness in the past and vows to put in the work so desperately needed to change the systemic racism and anti-Blackness that has permeated within our own community. In accordance with SAPHE’s mission to support all survivors of sexual violence, we pledge to create internal change. We will go through this process with complete transparency and invite any member of the community to hold us accountable with questions, feedback, or concerns (linked at the bottom). We vow to embrace input to give a voice to every survivor on campus. We will prioritize and value the importance of educating ourselves, recognizing silence and compliance, and maintaining transparency in both our successes and failures in the fight against racism. SAPHE understands that committing ourselves to strive for allyship is the only way to truly carry out our mission of being a support system for all survivors.

In solidarity,

The membership of Sexual Aggression Peer Hotline and Education (SAPHE)

Feedback and Concerns Form:

SAPHE Community Feedback Form This space is for all members of the Tulane community that have questions, comments, or concerns for the membership or administrators of SAPHE. Feel free to remain anonymous or leave your name. This is not a crisis resource, but rather a place for feedback on how our organization is doing at its job...

Congratulations to the graduating SAPHEs of 2020! Your commitment to supporting survivors and ending sexual violence within our community has made Tulane a better place. We are so sad to see you go but know the world is gaining a group of passionate and skilled advocates. Thank you for all of your service to survivors, Abby, Annika, Catharina, Christina, Grace, Kelly, Kennedy, Liv, and Nina! Roll SAPHE!

Say hi to Kelly! Kelly uses she/her/hers pronouns and is majoring in public health and cell and molecular biology, with a minor in psychology. On Tulane’s campus, she has also been involved with the Center for Public Service as a Community Engagement Advocate. A fun fact about Kelly is that Creole Creamery is her favorite place in New Orleans!

*TW- Brief description of sexual assault

Today is Denim Day! In 1992, a driving instructor in Italy sexually assaulted his 18- year old student. He was convicted but the Italian Supreme Court later overturned the conviction. Their reason for their decision: the survivor had been wearing what they deemed to be "tight" jeans leading them to the assumption that she would have had to help remove them, making the assault consensual. The next day the women of Italy's Parliament wore jeans in solidarity with the student and in protest of the ludacris argument. Every year since, is observed as a reminder that victim blaming is unacceptable and clothing is never an excuse or invitation to harass or assault.