‘BELIEVE AND LISTEN’
Officials join to focus on Sexual Assault Awareness Month
Social services agencies across America take it upon themselves to make the areas in which they operate a better world. One agency in Chester County has made its mission a lofty goal that might set it apart from others: to prevent the ill it was founded to fight before the ill can occur.
The Crime Victims Center of Chester County is having a spotlight shone on its efforts to eradicate sexual and other violent crimes through awareness and prevention training, during April — Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
On Wednesday, the county commissioners approved a proclamation lauding the center, its volunteers and its staff for bringing the issue of sexual assault and how it can be stopped before it happens to the front.
“Sexual Assault Awareness Month draws attention to the fact that sexual violence is widespread and affects all people, leaving survivors with severe physical and emotional scars and impacting the lives of victims’ families and friends,” said the proclamation, read by commissioners Vice Chairman Josh Maxwell and approved by him and fellow commissioners, Marian Moskowitz and Michelle Kichline.
“There is compelling evidence that communities can help reduce sexual violence through prevention education, increased awareness, and holding perpetrators who commit acts of violence responsible for their action,” Maxwell read.
Christine Zaccarelli, chief executive officer of the Crime Victims Center, echoed this thought in her remarks thanking the commissioners for their recognition.
“Our prevention education teams worked to prevent violence from occurring in the first place,”
Zaccarelli said in her comments Wednesday. The goal, she told the commissioners, is not only to help people — many times children in elementary and high school — “from being victims of crime but also to create a community where crime doesn’t occur in the
first place.”
Sexual Assault Awareness Month is a national initiative that intersects with the work the agency does with victims of sexual violence and prevention education throughout the year, the center said in a news release
about events it has scheduled throughout April.
Among those activities was the hanging of teal ribbons in communities across the county as a reminder and symbol of the month-long awareness ef