By Patrick Griffin
Contributing Writer
After three years, advocates, supporters and victims in the Saint Rose community joined again with professionals in the field of sexual violence to walk for Take Back The Night.
Renisse T. Bains, a Saint Rose graduate in mental health counseling and three-year intern at the Albany County Crime Victim and Sexual Violence Centre and the prevention educator for the organization was able to reflect on the event and what it aims to do.
“The main goal is really for awareness and rallying against sexual assault. It’s not like a robbery, where you can go and say, “I was robbed and someone broke into my home,” and there is a lot of stigma that comes with [sexual assault]. So this is about solidarity and letting people know that they can speak up, they will be heard and there are resources,” Bains said.
The night’s festivities started with a pre-rally event on the Saint Rose campus green which involved a variety of vendors and poetry readers, followed by opening remarks by various Albany County officials, as well as Saint Rose president Dr. Carolyn Stefanco. This was followed by a performance by the Soul Rebel performance troupe, before handing the podium over to three victims of sexual assault.
The first of the presenters shared their stories through powerful poetic tellings of what happened to them personally, and told emphatically through the tone of their voice and the choreography to go along with the words.
Three female survivors of sexual assault took turns sharing with the audience their experiences in detail. One speaker, Debbie, who did not share her last name, stated what the ability to share her story with people for the first time and her aspiration to become a hotline volunteer and a rape helpline counselor.
“It gives me closure to what happened. I’ve gone through counseling for more than two years now, and it has helped me put things behind me. I also felt that I could help other people that have been through similar sexual violence situations,” Debbie said.
Also saying a few words at the podium was current Saint Rose graduate student and intern at the Albany County Crime Victim and Sexual Violence Center, Elyse Nepa. She is finishing her degree in the mental health counseling program and is set to graduate at the end of the semester.
Nepa, while not a victim of an act of sexual violence herself, feels a personal responsibility to be there for people who have gone through such traumatic experiences.
“Their voice has been stripped away from them, their power is taken away, their control is taken away, everything that they once knew is gone and they need somebody there to support them. Somebody that is not going to judge them, somebody that will continue to hold their hand through the entire process, and that is what we do at the Crime Victim Center,” Nepa said.
A rally then followed the speakers as they went outside the auditorium. The rally was preceded by a horseback-guided march, and totaled 1.15 miles down Madison Ave. and Western Ave. before returning back to Saint Joseph Hall where a candlelight vigil and a moment of silence was held for victims of sexual violence in attendance and those who could not be.
The Albany County Crime Victim and Sexual Violence Center is in the Harold L. Joyce Albany County office building, located at 112 State Street, Room 118 in Albany.
