I’m really excited to announce the upcoming third annual Consent Fest at Amherst College! Consent Fest will be held on Friday April 8th from 11 am until 2 pm right on Val Quad. Consent Fest is a celebration complete with music (provided by DJ Nneka Ugwu ’16), food, and fun activities to complete. And best of all everyone who completes a certain amount of activities will receive a FREE tank-top!! The whole point of Consent Fest is to raise awareness about sexual respect on campus, normalize consent and conversation surrounding consent, and combat rape culture on Amherst’s campus. All the different activities will be guided by volunteers from different groups on campus. Last year a memorable moment was watching President Biddy Martin participate in consent charades with members of the men’s soccer team.
Consent Fest is hosted and orchestrated by the Peer Advocates of Sexual Respect. I have been a member of the PA’s since the spring of my sophomore year here at Amherst. Contrary to popular belief—although we pair up with the SHE’s often to run events—we are a separate group from the SHE’s. While the SHE’s cover all different facets of student health, we focus on just sexual respect. As Peer Advocates we have two main objectives, to prevent sexual assault and to help survivors of sexual assault. Preventing sexual assault involves everything from promoting healthy relationship to active bystander training. Helping survivors of sexual assault includes providing survivors with lists of resources on and off campus and the main way we help is we run a confidential student led support group for survivors of sexual assault called Break the Silence. If you are interested in joining this group do not hesitate to email Laura Fusari in the counseling center lfusari@amherst.edu or shoot me an e-mail at kreilly16@amherst.edu.
The PA’s are really amped up about Consent Fest this year because the first two years were wonderful and successful, but we were still learning as we went along. We have a lot of new PA’s and a large crew of dedicated students ready to put on a fantastic afternoon. We hope you’ll join us on Val Quad on Friday April 8th from 11 am —2pm!! Come help us promote a sexually respectful campus and get a free tank top while doing so!!