Q: What Drew You to Prevention?

Yglesias

You are watching the mapping prevention video podcast series produced by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. The NSVRC serves as the Nations principle information resource center regarding all aspects of sexual violence.

In this podcast we talk with Jonathan Yglesias, Sexual violence Prevention Coordinator at the Virginia Sexual & Domestic Violence Action Alliance, about Virginia’s “YES” Campaign to prevent sexual violence.

Q: What drew you to prevention?

A: What initially drew me to prevention work is the, I guess just the theory really informing the practice. Really being something that’s driving this kind of huge all-encompassing paradigm shift in a way that really kind of to me seemed like it was re-energizing not a field that was losing energy necessarily but a field that needed a little umph I guess. And it just seemed to make sense, it just clicked. It makes sense that if you think about the moving upstream analogy that the moving upstream you know example we have it just made sense to kind of think about what types of cultural constructs we have that really push us to almost allow perpetrators to exist within our culture. And it made sense to kind of have this again all-encompassing paradigm shift to try and halt that, to stop that, to interrupt that process. So that’s what initially drew me to prevention.

Q: How do you think sexual violence is going to end?

A: I think sexual violence is going to end, it’s going to be a long time, but I think that the way we’re going to get there is really trying to refocus our energies in a way that isn’t limiting to just this field so that we can kind of open our strategies in a way that makes sense to folks, beyond just advocates that are in the trenches doing the work and beyond folks that are really already kind of got prevention concepts. Opening up our strategies so that this is something that is accessible and real and concrete and there are concrete actions for everybody.

Q: What do you think is important for people to know about Virginia’s “YES” campaign?

A: Virginia’s YES campaign, I think one of the big things to take away from it is that like most of the products in the campaigns that we’ve tried to develop over the years, it’s been really informed by constituents and those are Virginia specific constituents but it’s been really informed by a process of what do we need, what are we lacking in terms of where are the gaps in understanding. With prevention being a relatively new concept it seems like you can’t really get to the process of developing in any sort of product that would make sense to folks without asking very simple questions like what’s hard about prevention, what do you feel like you need to know more about, what’s your concept of it initially, and does it make sense to you. So I think one of the big things to take away from Virginia’s “YES” campaign is this idea that any effective strategy to get folks on board with prevention has to be informed by folks that are going to be doing that work.

Q: What is your vision for branding prevention? A: My vision is that hopefully for branding prevention is hopefully that it’s going to stick. It’s going to be something that kind of cuts through the clutter and it’s going to be something people understand or are able to take away with them. In like any branding campaign that’s really a huge goal but we have kind of concrete steps that we know make these ideas kind of more accessible to folks. So the biggest thing I’d like to see this campaign do is really, if nothing else, get people on board with recognizing what a prevention product looks like and then being able to reiterate that to folks in their community. And maybe not even just verbatim kind of reiterate it but to be able to digest it and to reconstruct it in a way that makes sense to their communities.

Q: What is one thing a person can do to prevent sexual violence?

A: I think one thing that a person can do to prevent sexual violence is really just seek education and be as open as possible to understanding and to understanding empathy I think I should say. Being open to having conversations and having dialogues that have historically been pretty hard for folks to seek out. But I think the only way that sexual violence in going to end is if we have those tough discussions and if we talk about you know the ways that sexual violence manifests itself.

For more information on the National Sexual Violence Resource Center please go to www.nsvrc.org or call toll free at 877-739-3895. The NSVRC was founded by the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape and is supported in large part with funds from the Center of Disease Control and Prevention.