Walk A Mile In Her Shoes

This post doesn't really have anything to do with my pregnancy however I wanted to share with you all about a great event my students' hosted last Thursday. The event was Walk A Mile In Her Shoes: The International Men's March to Stop Rape, Sexual Assault and Gender Violence event. For those of you that are not familiar with Walk A Mile In Her Shoes, it is an organization that helps link, coordinate and publicize worldwide efforts to organize Walk a Mile in Her Shoes® Walks for the purposes of educating the community and raising money for local rape crisis centers.

Basically men are asked to literally walk a mile in women's four-inch high-healed shoes. The designated color for the shoes is red however as long as they are wearing women's high-heals that is all that matters.

My students have been working for the past four months to plan the event and with great success they had over 60 men walk in the march! This was truly a community effort with in the Fraternity and Sorority Community at UNI. Women volunteered by making signs with statics on rape, sexual assault and gender violence as well as handing out shoes and making baked goods for the event. Here are just a few of the pictures from the event that I though you would enjoy.

 All the men that participated in the walk

The women who led the men on their mile walk

Participants doing the "Cupid Shuffle" before the walk

Three staff members participating in the walk

Substance Abuse/Violence Intervention Services Coordinator (Green Shirt)

Dean of Students (Blue Shirt)

Associate Director/Maucker Union & my boss (Black shirt)

Over all it was a great event and hopefully educated both men and women about rape, sexual assault and gender violence. Here are a couple of links from our local media with more pictures and a video:

http://wcfcourier.com/news/local/article_c5e6d4f2-543d-11df-a6bb-001cc4c03286.html

http://www.kwwl.com/global/video/flash/popupplayer.asp?ClipID1=4745798&h1=Walk%20for%20Sex%20Assault&vt1=v&at1=undefined&d1=52100&LaunchPageAdTag=News&undefined&activePane=info&rnd=48579504

You know, maybe this post does have something to do with our baby. As I was typing this post describing to you all about the event it kept crossing my mind that hopefully I will be able to teach my children that they need to be involved in activities likes these. I want them to be passionate about issues that effect our community, nation and the world. I want them to be advocates for those things in life they believe in but most of all I want them to be well rounded individuals. Sorry for the rant! Hope you enjoyed the pictures!