SAAM Highlight: The Bandana Project Campaign

March 21, 2011 |
Valor

Guest post from Monica Ramirez from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)

Migrant farmworker women and other low wage immigrant women face sexual harassment and sexual violence in the workplace at alarming rates.  Despite the gravity of the problem, few women have ever come forward to seek justice for the wrongs committed against them.  These women are often afraid, unfamiliar with their rights and isolated.  In an attempt to stop these abuses and to educate community members about their rights in the face of this problem, community groups, non-profit legal organizations, anti-sexual violence advocates, community activists, and many other groups throughout the United States will join together to speak out against this problem and to conduct educational programs to inform farmworker and low-wage immigrant community members of their rights and the community resources available to help victims.

The Southern Poverty Law Center and the Dolores Huerta Foundation invite you to participate in The Bandana Project Campaign this April as a part of the national 2011 Sexual Assault Awareness Month activities.  The Bandana Project, a public awareness campaign, was launched by Esperanza: The Immigrant Women’s Legal Initiative of the Southern Poverty Law Center in June of 2007 as a part of its national initiative to raise end sexual violence against farmworker women in the workplace.  As a part of the 2011 campaign, groups will decorate and display bandanas throughout the United States to shed light on this serious problem.  In addition, groups typically host know your rights trainings for farmworker community members, hold educational events for the non-farmworker community to share information about the devastating situation confronting farmworker women and/or hold meetings with allied groups to create strategies to help serve farmworker and other low-wage immigrant victims of sexual violence.
This awareness campaign is supported by our partners at the Dolores Huerta Foundation. For more information about the project, feel free to send an email to me  at monica.ramirez@splcenter.org, or contact Lily Catalan, of the Dolores Huerta Foundation, at (661) 322-3033.
You can order your free Bandana Project Kit today by emailing the Bandana Project at bandanaproject@gmail.com.