Rape Crisis Center’s annual Java Jive benefits sexual assault victims

 Dane County residents enjoy coffee and conversation at the Rape Crisis Center’s annual Java Jive last year. (Beth Shippert-Myers)

The Rape Crisis Center will host their 21st annual Java Jive coffee tasting event this September to raise funds for services benefiting sexual assault victims in Dane County.

Java Jive will feature coffee and tea tastings from local vendors, brunch, live music, raffles and a silent auction at the Brink Lounge on Sept. 18 from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Attendees also will receive a Java Jive mug designed  for the event.

Erin Thornley, executive director of the Rape Crisis Center, believes the event is a great way to gather and have fun as a community while spreading awareness about sexual assault.

“Sexual assault remains a silent epidemic,” Thornley said. “I think that as a society we have always downplayed the impact of sexual assault, but it can have a very significant impact on its victims. It’s important that we as a community make sure we have a center that provides all the services a victim of sexual assault needs.”

The Rape Crisis Center serves all of Dane County and provides various services for sexual assault victims including a 24 hour help line that is staffed by trained volunteer counselors, medical and legal advocacy as well as counseling and support groups.

Java Jive participants try various coffees and teas from local vendors. (Beth Shippert-Myers)

“We will be there,” Thornley said. “From the time somebody calls us to the time they go to the hospital or seek counseling, we are there. We are an empowerment model, and that means we provide all the choices available to the victim. That makes them survivors. They get to make choices for themselves, and we are there to support those choices.”

According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, one out of three girls and one out of six boys will have been sexually assaulted by the time they are 18. Once in adulthood, one out of five women and one out of 33 men are sexually assaulted. Sexual assault remains the most under-reported crime with 63 percent of assaults not reported to police.

“It’s an extremely high number, and people suffer in silence,” Thornley said.

According to the most recent report from the Wisconsin Department of Justice, 4,847 sexual assaults were reported to law enforcement in 2010, 59 of which were reported in Dane County.

A primary focus of the Rape Crisis Center is prevention education in order to decrease the number of sexual assaults that occur each year. The center has offices on college campuses throughout Madison and sends counselors to local high schools to teach what consent really means.

“We no longer call teaching women how not to get raped prevention education,” Thornley said. “Prevention is teaching men how not to rape. The vast majority of sexual assaults are committed by men, including cases where the victim is male.” 

The Rape Crisis Center has also launched new initiatives to ensure that sexual assault is being confronted in the most efficient and inclusive ways. Their new program, Game Changers, invites high school students to apply to an advisory board made up of 16 students from various geographic, ethnic and gender backgrounds and helps them become leaders who play a hands-on role against sexual assault year round.

According to Thornley, the center also is focusing on providing more culturally appropriate and specific services to African American, Latino and deaf clients. The Rape Crisis Center is working with existing agencies to cross train workers who can best tailor their services to the needs of these communities.

“The anti-sexual assault movement has been traditionally pretty white, and a huge drive of our organization is to change that moving forward,” Thornley said. “We want to make sure that 24 hours a day we reflect inclusivity.”