Moriah Mason / Staff Writer
Samford sorority, Delta Xi Phi, not only believes in community service, sisterhood, and friendship, but also spreading awareness about sexual assault.
Delta Xi Phi held their first Redzone Awareness Week with the goal for students to become more aware of sexual assault that takes place on college campuses. Redzone Awareness Week started on Sept. 16 and ended on Sept. 20.
Jamie Davenport, chapter president of Delta Xi Phi, provided more information on the history of Red Zone Awareness Week and how she became inspired to create awareness on Samford’s campus.
“August to November is the highest rate of assault on college campuses nationwide. There are other campuses that do have events that focus more on prevention measures during those couple of months,” Davenport said.
April is known for being Sexual Assault Awareness Activism month, however, Davenport wanted to create awareness in the fall.
Davenport said after speaking with Julie Fletcher, the director of Samford Greek Life, they agreed it would be a good idea for there to be an event in the beginning of the school year for Delta Xi Phi.
“It’s good to have events in April but we also need to have something at the beginning of the school year,” Fletcher said.
Davenport was able to work with Delta Xi Phi, Greek Life and Counseling Services to create a week of events that promote awareness. The week of events included information on red flags in dating, bystander intervention and a self-defense workshop.
Davenport also gave information on a crisis center located in Birmingham for victims of sexual assault, which is located on 3600 8th Ave S #501 near the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
The crisis center performs rape kit examinations, provides medicine and have an advocate to help people, as well as trained nurses that can collect any evidence that will be needed for any trials.
The crisis center also has a crisis line and a rape response line. The phone number for the crisis line is 205-323-7777 and the phone number for rape response is 205-323-7273.
For more information about crisis intervention and prevention, sexual assault measures, or the crisis center, visit https://crisiscenterbham.org.
