April is National Sexual Assault Awareness Month and in conjunction with that, Skyline College’s ASSC taught students about relationship violence through a film based Escalation Workshop on April 28, 2016.

The event covered is a sensitive and serious topic that many people go through every day.

Around 20 percent of college students report having experienced dating violence from a current partner, and college-aged women (16–24) experience the highest rate of dating violence than any other age group according to the Justice Department.

Associated Students of Skyline College (ASSC) member Marlon Gaytan hosted the workshop, along with other members of the Associated Students of Skyline College.

The workshop started with a series of Youtube videos from the One Love Foundation based in New York with the hashtag “thatsnotlove” as the theme, focusing mainly on the way partners treat each other in their relationship out of “love.”

The series of short “thatsnotlove” videos was followed by a short movie in which a controlling boyfriend abuses his partner physically, mentally, and emotionally to the point that he kills her.

The short film focused on the couple from the beginning of their relationship until the very tragic end. Skyline College wants students to be aware of how to handle an abusive relationship.

“I think no one wants to have a blind eye to anything like this, but it’s more of ‘how would I go about saying what I’ve seen,'” ASSC member Davonte Cade said. “We try as best we can to make events around the times where most people can come, but everybody has different schedules.”

The workshop seemed to have a lot of potential, but unfortunately it won’t have any effect on Skyline students because no one showed up.

“I didn’t even know about it,” humanities major Gus DeMartini said. “I think it’s really difficult because we all have different schedules and things to do and places to be.”

On average, nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States. During one year, this equates to more than 10 million women and men, according to the National Coalition of Domestic Violence.

“I think it’s an issue that’s hard to speak about, especially when you’re a victim of it,” sophomore Edgardo Ceron said.

The ASSC uses a combination of flyers, social media and keeping track of classes to advertise the events in. Some students at Skyline did have solutions to making events such as the Escalation Workshop better.

“I didn’t even know about it,” political science major Yessica Cedeno said. “I think they can advertise it better by going to classrooms and making announcements, as well as making flyers and handing them all around campus.”

In comparison, the ASSC has been doing some of the advertisement techniques.

“I personally have been communicating with professors to give them a heads-up first,that ASSC will visit their classes if given permission,” Gayton said.

Relationship abuse and domestic violence is a common problem in today’s society. If more people such as students go to these kinds of workshops, the higher the possibility of students becoming aware of domestic violence.

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