Some of the executive board members of the women empowerment initiative, Sister Circle, made it their mission to become Green Dot certified on Sept. 28 to help prevent sexual harassment on campus.

Latrice Johnson is a senior fashion merchandising major who came to the Green Dot Bystander Skills workshop with some of her Sister Circle executive board members.

“I came today because in Sister Circle we basically discussed sexual harassment and what we can do as women of color to try and prevent it because we are leaders,” she said. 

Johnson did not know much about Green Dot before having a discussion with Sister Circle about this topic surrounding sexual harassment. 

“I may have seen something about it or heard something but I really didn’t know what it meant or what it symbolized until we had that meeting,” Johnson said.

Green Dot is “a movement around changing the culture around personal based violence. So it is about what we can all do as members of our community to look out for one another, to actively prevent harm, to actively communicate messages of the two norms, violence is not tolerated and everyone does their part,” said Director of SRVSS Jennie O’Connell.

Junior engineering technology major Alexus Smith is the marketing chair for Sister Circle. Even though she came to the workshop with all women, she noticed that there was not a great diversity of genders who came to this session. 

“I believe more people should be a part of this and not just a Green Dot group of women because it needs men in Green Dot, too,” she said. “This does not only happen to women, but it also happens to men, transgenders, everybody else. Also to have men be a part of this, they can also see what they can do to help in a situation with a friend.”

The Green Dot Bystander Skills Workshop consisted of many different activities to help build a reactive bystander in situations of need. There were scenarios on what can be done in tough situations around power-based violence, understanding personal barriers and how to react in a way that is comfortable for the bystander. 

Johnson believes the workshop “gives you certain confidence within yourself to help other people. It also helps you become more aware of situations that we see every day but do not interfere or do anything about.”

“There’s a lot that could possibly happen on campus and I want to be able to speak up for people who feel uncomfortable or may feel wrong,” Smith said.

O’Connell was pleased to see the Sister Circle executive board come to the workshop.

 “I think it was awesome that Sister Circle’s leadership team came. One of the things about student organizations is students influence students,” she said. “So when a leadership group, such as the Sister Circle’s executive group, chooses to communicate that message that this matters to them and take time out out of their weekend to come to a workshop, it influences their membership. It lets their membership know, ‘we care about this topic.’ That it is important for us to be able to look out for you and to be positive, active bystanders in our community. That is how we influence.”

Contact Katia Rodriguez at [email protected].