The Women’s Center’s These Hands Don’t Hurt campaign ended Wednesday after raising awareness about domestic violence for nearly a month. This year’s campaign was the Women’s Center’s most expansive to date, as it included Centennial Campus and the College of Veterinary Medicine for the first time.
These Hands Don’t Hurt is a nationwide campaign that takes place during the month of October, which is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. During the course of the month-long campaign, participants across the country and across NC State’s three campuses painted their handprints on tarps as a symbol of their pledge to end domestic violence.
Otis McGresham, assistant director for Interpersonal Violence Advocacy Services, a part of the Women’s Center, helped start the campaign and said the program is meant to be a commitment against domestic violence.
“The handprint is the person’s visible representation of the commitment to play their role in stopping domestic violence,” McGresham said.
Though These Hands Don’t Hurt is not new to NC State and has been successful in the past, McGresham said the Women’s Center had more ambitious plans for the campaign this year, which is why the center expanded the program beyond main campus.
“Although we got lots of positive feedback, we knew we were missing portions of campuses and other groups of students, so we decided to do the campaign on all three NC State-affiliated campuses during the month of October,” McGresham said.
The goal of the campaign, as McGresham sees it, is to impart three things upon participants and onlookers. Each handprint represents a participant’s commitment not to commit acts of domestic violence, to educate the public about the issue and to intervene if he or she sees someone in an unhealthy, abusive relationship, McGresham said.
“The campaign is meant to get people engaged, get people to talk about it and really take that act of commitment to prevent them from participating in acts of domestic violence, and building a community that supports that stance,” McGresham said.
The tarps containing the handprints of the pledges will be kept in the Women’s Center, and they loaned out to various departments to promote domestic-violence awareness.
Betsy Taylor, a psychologist at the College of Veterinary Medicine, helped the Women’s Center bring the campaign to the vet school. One of the main reasons for expanding the campaign to all of NC State’s campuses was to reach different groups of people who may have otherwise not been involved in the campaign, Taylor said.
“I think because the vet school is a little bit removed from the rest of the campus, sometimes we miss out on these awareness types of activities, so we wanted people to have a chance to speak out about domestic violence,” Taylor said.
Sherrie Yuschak, a clinical behavioral technician at the veterinary hospital, said domestic violence is one of the more prevalent problems in society, and it needs attention.
“It’s one of the more rampant problems in our society, and it’s important to raise awareness about domestic violence and also provide more support for victims,” Yuschak said.
