|
Walk a Mile in Her Shoes® Awareness-Raising Campaigns Walk A Mile In Her Shoes® Events consistently receive enthusiastic participation and news coverage. They are an excellent opportunity to rally support in your community to raise awarness about the causes, effects and remedies for sexual assault and domestic violence. This is one example. More can be found on our video page. This is from Royal Lepage, St. Belleville, ON, Canada. |
Put Yourself in Her Shoes™
Each year, an ever-increasing number of men, women and their families are joining the award-winning Walk a Mile in Her Shoes®: The International Men's March to Stop Rape, Sexual Assault & Gender Violence. A Walk a Mile in Her Shoes® Event is a playful opportunity for men to raise awareness in their community about the serious causes, effects and remediations to sexualized violence.
First You Walk the Walk
There is an old saying: "You can't really understand another person's experience until you've walked a mile in their shoes." Walk a Mile in Her Shoes® asks men to literally walk one mile in women's high-heeled shoes. It's not easy walking in these shoes, but it's fun and it gets the community to talk about something that's really difficult to talk about: gender relations and sexual violence.
Then You Talk the Talk
It's critical to open communication about sexualized violence. While hidden away, sexualized violence is immune to cure. Unfortunately, it's difficult to get people talking. People unfamiliar with sexualized violence don't even want to know it exists. It's ugly. People that have experienced sexualized violence themselves want to forget about it. How do you get people talking now, so they can prevent it from happening? And if it's already happened, how do you help them get help to recover?
A Walk a Mile in Her Shoes® Event is abundant with opportunities to get people talking. For preventive education, it helps men better understand and appreciate women’s experiences, thus changing perspectives, helping improve gender relationships and decreasing the potential for violence. For healing, it informs the community that services are available for recovery. It demonstrates that men are willing and able to be courageous partners with women in making the world a safer place. The Walk Event Experience provides a description of how these opportunities might present themselves at a Walk a Mile in Her Shoes® Event.
Upcoming Walks in 2013 Here is a promotional video for an upcoming annual Walk a Mile in Her Shoes® Event to be held April 20th 2013 at the Sullivan County New York Government Center. Film by Nicholas Ferrara. Event will benefit RISE (Rape Intervention Services & Education) of Sullivan County, who advocates for anyone who is or has been a victim of sexual abuse. Founded in 1987, RISE provides an array of services to victims of sexual abuse and offers prevention education, advocacy and assistance to victims, and accompanies them to the hospital, police or district attorney after an incident. RISE also offers confidential individual, family or couples counseling as well as support groups and professional training sessions. |
|
|
Not Just a Women's Issue
Sexualized violence does not just affect women. It affects the men who care about them, their families, their friends, their coworkers, and their communities. Sexualized violence is epidemic. Some of the statistics: Every two minutes someone in America is raped. One in six American women are victims of sexual assault.That means someone you know, someone you care about, has been or may become the victim of sexual violence. It may be your mother, your sister, your friend, your girlfriend, your wife, your coworker, or your daughter.
|
|
Shoes in the News We are here to inform the world of the valuable contributions men are making to stop sexualized violence. We are here to help link, coordinate and publicize worldwide efforts to organize Walk a Mile in Her Shoes® Events for raising awareness and funds for sexualized violence education, prevention and remediation. See Videos and News from around the world about recent Walks. See Photos of courageous men taking a stand against sexualized violence. See the Calendar for upcoming Walks. |
Our Mission
Co-creating a United Gender Movement, men will be a part of the solution to ending sexualized violence.
Walk a Mile in Her Shoes® Events are political and performance art with public, personal and existential messages. At a Walk a Mile in Her Shoes® Event there is no distinction between performer and audience. Our mission is to create a unique and powerful public experience that educates individuals and communities about the causes of sexualized violence, provides them with prevention and remediation strategies and empowers them to further develop and implement these knowledges and skills interpersonally and politically.
History of Walk a Mile in Her Shoes®
Frank Baird created Walk a Mile in Her Shoes® in 2001. What started out as a small group of men daring to totter around a park has grown to become a world-wide movement with tens of thousands of men raising millions of dollars for local rape crisis centers, domestic violence shelters and other sexualized violence education, prevention and remediation programs.
In 2007, Frank formed Venture Humanity, Inc, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation. Venture Humanity, Inc. develops peace, violence prevention and community projects. Walk a Mile in Her Shoes® is a Venture Humanity, Inc. project. Please help sustain these efforts with your donation.
