Poetry project honours victims of gender-based violence

Sunday, Dec. 6 is the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women, and Project Lighthouse is hoping to do something special.

The importance of the day cannot be understated, according to Sarah Crawford, the sexual violence prevention and harm reduction coordinator at Algonquin.

“It’s an important day because we’re honouring the women who were murdered at l’École Polytechnique de Montreal in 1989,” said Crawford.

On that day, Marc Lépine entered a classroom and separated the men from the women. He would then open fire on the women.

“It’s 31 years later and we’re still working on reducing gendered violence,” said Crawford. “We are still seeing the same issues we were 30 years ago, and that’s a problem.”

Although no in-person events can be done thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, Project Lighthouse still hopes that students will participate by sharing messages of support for all those affected by gendered violence.

Students are being asked to answer the question “How do you hope to create a world without gendered violence?” After the answers have been submitted, 50 answers will be selected and used to create poetry art. Those selected will also receive a small token of thanks from Project Lighthouse.

“Normally, we’re on campus and I would have a big event,” said Crawford. “We would normally have a memorial, but the event is actually on Sunday, so I wanted to ask people throughout the week to submit their thoughts and have those conversations.”

“The idea is that people will submit their ideas about how they can help live in a world without gender-based violence,” she said. “There have already been some submissions, but I’m still hoping to get more. I thought this was a nice, easy way for people to raise awareness.”

Students can submit their responses until Sunday. The final poetry project will be available for viewing next week.