CCASA part 2

CCASA part 2

The Colorado Coalition against Sexual Assault has several important issues that they address as an organization. From their website (ccasa.org), their mission statement is: “The Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault is a membership organization promoting safety, justice, and healing for survivors while working toward the elimination of sexual violence.” And the organization has seven core values: 1) Anti-oppression and social justice/change. 2) Survivor focus. 3) Collaboration and community engagement. 4) Advocacy and education. 5) Safety and freedom. 6) Offender accountability. 7) Ethical practices. (http://www.ccasa.org/whoweare/index.cfm).

CCASA educates and communicates these values to the community in a variety of ways. They hold webinars each month on issues surrounding sexual assault, and hold seminars and meetings as well. So they do lots of networking and interaction with the community, holding these and other events like I’ll be doing for them in April (hosting a film screening for Sexual Assault Awareness Month). CCASA works to address public policy issues; members are informed and updated about public policies, and they “testify on bills and educate lawmakers concerning the Coalition’s perspective on sexual violence in Colorado.” Training is provided for members, and they offer publications on topics related to sexual assault. And they work with many other organizations providing information and education.

My class prompt this week for this blog is for us to say what we think our organization we’re volunteering for is doing well, and what they could be doing better. CCASA makes this difficult, as they’re doing an excellent job. I think if they can do anything better, it would be educating men on the subject of sexual assault (which I wrote about in the previous blog post). I think most of that is not a necessarily a problem with the organization, but rather with men and society in general, as this isn’t the kind of topic that men talk about or are talked to about. I know many men are simply uncomfortable with the subject; they feel like they don’t need to know about it and if told would be wondering why. Not a good situation to try and work with. But I know CCASA is trying and that they work to educate women and men. Unfortunately, with men being how they are, I don’t yet know how to make them more willing to learn about the topic of sexual assault.