S.A.F.E. Hosts Printmaking Workshop Making our mark: gender-based violence and survivor advocacy

“As long as we're able to reach folks, and people are able to walk away with a tool that they can utilize in a time of crisis or a challenging situation, that's what's more important than the number of folks,” said Saori Borrayo, a teaching artist with survivor lead art workshop AWAKENINGS.

 The workshop was headed by Borrayo, studio manager Wes Kendall from AWAKENINGS  and Sarah Lee, the new director for Project S.A.F.E.

Everyone was provided with watercolor paint, markers, ink, water cups, stamps, and pre-carved linoleum blocks which include messages such as, “you are loved,” “healing is non-linear,” “love,” and many depictions of hearts, foliage, and calming patterns. Borrayo and Kendall welcomed everyone with wide arms and guided everyone to making their own unique art and offering support every step of the way.

“I think that students are usually pretty excited to be using their hands. It's maybe something that is not readily available to people or it's not something that people often make time for, especially, like, during school or, like, while they're a student,” Kendall said. Art is very important to AWAKENINGS; Wes explained the mission statement as, “AWAKENING’S mission statement is that we provide free, trauma-informed healing art experiences for survivors of sexual violence.” 

AWAKENINGS and Project SAFE are a great fit to work with each other; Sarah Lee said, “Project S.A.F.E. is a district-wide gender-based violence prevention and response program. So our goal is just to create awareness around domestic violence, sexual violence, and stalking and to help create safer campuses.” 

This was Lee's first workshop at Wright as the new S.A.F.E. Director. “Would I love more people? Yes. But, you know, you gotta start small; you gotta start somewhere,” said Lee. There were 4 students at this workshop. Around 5 students stopped and inquired about the workshop. 

Borrayo said, “I would also say that Wright has a lot more foot traffic,” saying it feels more populated than other City Colleges. “I also think that there's more people who are a little bit more, like, open to just stop by or come and ask us questions. Even if they don't sit down and make art, they just seem a little bit more keen or interested to check out what's going on,” Borrayo said.

Wright is one of the only open campuses of CCC and has a lot of potential to have high turnout at events such as these. A problem that AWAKENINGS has is, "everything that we do is free. It's just the hard thing is, like, getting people first,” Kendall said. 

 AWAKENINGS is based at 4001 N. Ravenswood Ave. and holds free workshops frequently and the second and fourth Friday every month they hold an open studio welcome to all. Project S.A.F.E. has a very ambitious plan. “I think that survivors are often, like, a population of people that are not thought about. So, as long as we can create a space where we're open and communicative and just letting people know that we're supportive, there's people here that are thinking about them, regardless of whether or not they are coming out and saying anything. So, I'm going to try my best to do as much programming as possible,” Lee said. 

Lee plans to have a pre-Oscar's watch party of the film “Anora" to talk about the power balances. Project S.A.F.E. and AWAKENINGS both share the problem of a lack of men participating. “Something that's hard with gender-based violence is, regardless of whether or not, of how open we are to supporting everybody of all genders, like, all survivors, it's hard to get input from men. I feel like it's a lot of women's work. So I would love to find a way to engage masculine, like, masculinity in male-presenting people,” Lee said. 

Lee added, “There's a statistic that men may be experiencing gender-based violence at the same rate that women do. They just experience it in a really different way; and they're less likely to report. So I just want people to know that this is, like, there's care for everybody, regardless of your gender, regardless of how you identify. Like, this can happen to anybody. So that's really what I'm trying to work on this semester.”

Unlike AWAKENINGS, Project S.A.F.E. is not an external partner but a part of the CCC system. Sarah Lee is a confidential counselor and wants to let you know that if you have a problem, you don't feel comfortable bringing to security, police, or a professor you are more than welcome to reach out to her at slee330@ccc.edu and her office is L248. 

AWAKENINGS and Project S.A.F.E. will be collaborating again in April for an art showcase that takes place at Harold Washington College as April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. If a student wants to submit art it doesn’t have to be created from the AWAKENINGS workshops. “If anyone wants to create other trauma-informed art and donate it, they can just email me directly. And I'll have them sign a waiver,”  Lee said.

For black history month Sarah has themed her monthly zine on black women in the gender-based violence movement. “Every cool movement that's ever started, it was started by a black woman,” Lee said. Her zine is called We Keep Us, and you can access it here through this link: https://zinesforever.com/u/project_s.a.f.e.

To conclude, if you or anyone you know may be in need of services from Project S.A.F.E. or AWAKENINGS you can reach out to them on Instagram @cccsafe and @awakeningsart. Sarah Lee's email is slee330@ccc.edu and AWAKENINGS is located at 4001 N Ravenswood Ave. You can fill out this short survey on any suggestions with this QR Code.

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