Last week the Clothesline Project took place on the DU campus from 9 a.m.- 5p.m. every day as one of the events of Sexual Assault Awareness Week.

It was meant to give people a chance to say what they wanted about sexual assault in the form of making a T-shirt.

Student, faculty and staff had three options on where to design a T-shirt, which would then be hung outside on the Penrose Library railing and in Driscoll Bridge.

Those who wanted privacy could go to the Health and Counseling Center and ask for a private room to make their T-shirt.

The other venues for designing a shirt were in the Gender Violence Resource Center, located in Nelson Residence Hall, or at the one-night-only location in the Fireside Room of the Driscoll Center prior to the Take Back the Night event. The final option was a way for people to come together and design their shirts as a group.

“People can design shirts in their own home or in confidential spaces and share their own story,” said Lisa Ingarfield, who started the project at DU and is research coordinator for the Gender Violence Resource Center.

According to Ingarfield, the project offers people a voice. She said that the project gets three or four more shirts every year which shows that there are more stories to be told.

Sexual assault education and awareness programs are fairly new to DU.

The Clothesline Project was started in Cape Cod, Mass., in 1990 by a group of women concerned with violence toward women.

The idea of the project is to let women who have been affected by violence express their pain or feelings creatively by decorating T-shirts with whatever they have to say.

Relatives, friends and those who know someone that has been affected by violence were welcome to decorate shirts as well.

Hanging the shirts on a clothesline serves as an educational tool for those who viewed them and generated a healing process, so that the person who designed the shirt could hang it up and leave the pain in the past.

According to the organization’s WebSite, “…it allows those who are still suffering in silence to understand that they are not alone.”

Ingarfield said more great ways to get involved are with the three clubs at DU: Rape Awareness and Gender Education (RAGE), Greek Leaders Against Sexual Assault and Men as Allies.

There is also the Sexual Assault Survivor Advocate (SASA) network where students can train to become an advocate.

Students can also call 303-871-3456 for confidential counseling services.

To find out more information about the Clothesline Project visit www.clotheslineproject.org.