2012 Annual Report--Virginia Sexual & Domestic Violence Action Alliance Published August 2013 | Página 4

PREVENT
sexual and domestic violence by advancing social justice, healthy relationships and healthy sexuality.
A teen pilot participant creates her “You-niverse” during the DO YOU Campaign pilot.

DO YOU: Building Youth Assets through Creative Expression
After 3 years of development and holding focus groups with nearly 100 13-16 year olds across Virginia, we piloted our new DO YOU campaign to build teens’ resilience to violence through creative expression. The DO YOU Campaign addresses youth violence (dating and sexual violence, sexual harassment, and bullying) by confronting its root causes and enhancing protective factors (also referred to as “building resilience”) to promote positive development and healthy relationships. Two phases comprise the campaign. In Phase I, teens meet over 10 sessions in small, same-gender groups. Each session uses experiential activities and creative expression to build resilience to youth violence by: • Developing greater empathy; • Learning to model fairness and equality; • Feeling valued by one’s community; • Learning media literacy tools to critically analyze media messages; • Learning about the four components to healthy sexuality, and; • Practicing respectful communication skills. Each teen focuses her/his creative work on an individual “zine”, a creative art book with “fill-in-the-blank” prompts for self exploration. In Phase 2, teens plan and execute a culminating activity or event that highlights insight gained in Phase 1. The pilot locations are: Scott County, Culpeper, and Hampton/Newport News. The pilot began October, 2012 and is scheduled to end April, 2013. We couldn’t be more excited to pilot this campaign and bring it to a wider audience in 2013!

We envision a Commonwealth where individuals and communities are actively engaged in dismantling sexism, racism, heterosexism and other forms of oppression; as a result, people are safe and respected.

Creative expression benefits teens (and everyone else!) in the following ways:
• expressing feelings safely • practicing using art as a coping strategy • exploring the many facets of his