By Abigail Bender

Content Warning: This article mentions information about sexual assault and power-based violence. 

Campus Advocates Respond and Educate to Stop Violence, or CARE, hosted its annual Take Back the Night event during Sexual Assault Awareness Month on McKeldin Mall on Wednesday, April 8, focusing on the history of the movement.

According to the Maryland Higher Education Commission in their Report on Campus Climate and Sexual Violence at Maryland Colleges and Universities, in the 2022-2024 cycle, 2,912 incidents of sexual assault or other sexual misconduct were reported.

Of these reports, 92% were from a Maryland four-year institution, with 57.5% of those being from a public institution.

Take Back the Night is a global event beginning in the 1970s to fight for equality and bring attention to the voices of survivors of sexual violence, said Grace Fansler Boudreau, CARE’s program director. 

“Because of that, one of the things we’re hoping that students take away is that there is a very long history of groups organizing and coming together to protest sexual violence and to advocate for creating safer communities for women, for people of color, [and] for people of different sexual identities,” Boudreau said.

CARE is the university’s free and confidential service that provides support for primary and secondary survivors of issues such as sexual assault and harassment, relationship and power-based violence and stalking. 

“We are able to confidentially guide someone through crisis management, through providing emotional support, and then also seeking help with accessing different services,” Boudreau said.

CARE peer advocates facilitated the Take Back the Night event. Peer advocates are trained undergraduate students who provide emotional and educational support to students seeking assistance, said Isabella dos Santos, a CARE peer advocate and senior criminology and criminal justice and economics double-major.

“It’s 50 years since the first Take Back the Night event started,” Santos said. “It started in Pennsylvania in 1976.”

By focusing on the history of the movement, CARE highlights the decades of awareness Take Back the Night has raised to honor and uplift survivors, said María Teresa Bazdekis, a CARE peer advocate and senior psychology major.

“Take Back the Night is an event that’s happened across college campuses across America,” Bazdekis said.

The first Take Back the Night event on Maryland’s campus started as a march against the rapes of two women that occurred in 1979, as reported by the New Exhibit for Sexual Assault Awareness Month in the university’s Special Collections and University Archives.

At this year’s event, CARE advocates held activities such as bracelet making and painting flower pots, featuring colors and seeds associated with the themes of Take Back the Night, including personal growth, resilience, hope and supporting relationship violence and sexual assault victims. 

CARE advocates answered questions related to Take Back the Night and the CARE office, such as what signs of power-based violence look like. In addition to CARE, the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault was at this year’s event to provide resources and support to survivors of sexual violence. 

While CARE’s Take Back the Night event provided guided resources to learn about its services, for immediate help, call CARE’s 24-hour Sexual Assault Hotline at 301-741-3442.

Featured Image: View of McKeldin Mall, where the CARE to Stop Violence’s ‘Take Back the Night’ event was held. Photo by Miller Rogers-Tetrick.