Support The Daily Orange this holiday season! The money raised between now and the end of the year will go directly toward aiding our students. Donate today.

Syracuse University’s Student Association held its first sexual violence prevention kit distribution this week, an initiative it has been developing since the spring 2023 semester.

From Nov. 27 to Dec. 1 in the Schine Student Center, SA distributed around 250 kits to students, Yasmin Nayrouz, SA’s vice president, said. The kits included a portable door lock, a drink cover, 10 drink spiking test kits and a Birdie personal safety alarm. Due to high demand, SA is now planning to distribute more kits in the spring semester, she said.

Nayrouz said SA decided to distribute the kits after gathering feedback and complaints from students about the university’s response to addressing sexual violence on campus over the past year.

“It’s not only a way to show support and solidarity for survivors, but it’s also a way to protect our students,” Nayrouz said.

Nayrouz said she worked with SA President William Treloar and SA Director of Relationship Violence Advocacy Kayla Turner to carry out the event. She also credited Adia Santos, former vice president of SA and current graduate student at SU, for developing the original concept for the kits.

Santos, who now serves as the liaison between SA and SU’s Graduate Student Organization, said her initial idea developed from her desire to remind SU administration of the prominence of sexual violence on college campuses and urge the university to provide more readily available resources to its students.

After Santos pitched the initiative to the assembly during its Feb. 13 meeting, SA had prepared for about nine months before last week’s tabling, Santos said. During this time, SA decided what items to include, internally approved funding, submitted tabling requests and had its members assemble the kits.

SA started distributing all of its available kits Friday at around 1:15 p.m., finishing at 2 p.m., Nayrouz said. Although SA members were glad the kits were responsive to students’ needs, she said running out of kits “points to a larger issue on campus.”

“Because (the kits) went so quickly, it kind of gave everyone a reality check,” Santos said. “Clearly, there’s a need.”

Turner hopes the kit distribution event will demonstrate to the university administration that it needs to make these types of resources more accessible to students on campus.

“While we have education on campus and trainings on how to prevent sexual violence, I think it’s one thing just to speak about it,” Turner said during last week’s meeting. “These resources are tantamount to student safety.”

Following the success of last week’s kit distribution, SA is tentatively planning to hold another week of distributions at the start of the spring semester, Nayrouz said. She also said SA wants to introduce more programming to combat sexual violence on campus.

“It’s not only a way to show support and solidarity for survivors, but it’s also a way to protect our students,” Nayrouz said.

The sexual violence prevention kits are part of SA’s ongoing advocacy initiatives, which the organization has emphasized in the latter half of the fall semester.

Santos said she hopes these advocacy programs will encourage the university to follow SA’s example and take further action to address student concerns.

“Syracuse University isn’t void of responsibility for national crises and issues,” Santos said. “Our university is a microcosm of society.”

Published on December 3, 2023 at 10:30 pm

Contact Julia: jmboehni@syr.edu