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Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) Program http://www.sportinsociety.org/mvp.html MENTORS IN VIOLENCE PREVENTION (MVP) PROGRAM Program
Summary How bad is the Problem of men's violence against women ... Bystander Approach to Prevention Background MVP
Initiatives
Northeastern
University's Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) Female Student-Athlete Project The Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) Project was established in 1993 to increase the participation of student-athletes in campus-based efforts to prevent all forms of men's violence against women. The MVP Project works with male and female student-athletes and non-athletes, educating them about their roles and responsibilities, and inspiring them to take active leadership on these critical issues. MVP stresses the idea that empowered women have numerous opportunities to interrupt and confront sexist and abusive behavior by men. Traditionally, prevention efforts have focused on how women, as potential victims, can protect themselves or avoid dangerous situations. The MVP Female Student-Athlete Project, by contrast, educates women and girls about their options as bystanders in scenarios involving actual or potential assaults against women. The MVP Female Student-Athlete Project works with women's teams at colleges and universities nationwide, as well as with high school girls. The main teaching tool utilized is the MVP Playbook, which consists of a series of realistic scenarios involving sexual assaults, harassment, and abuse of women. The sessions are highly interactive. The multi-racial MVP team of former student-athletes facilitates a dialogue about concrete ways for girls and women to prevent and respond to sexist violence. The MVP trainers encourage participants to share personal experiences and discuss ways that intervention has been or might be effective in preventing rape, battering, and sexual harassment. Female student-athletes in the MVP Project provide leadership to their peers on campus and to young people in their communities. MVP trains some of the college female student-athletes to provide direction and role modeling for girls in middle and/or high schools. MVP Program graduates speak about men's violence against women to their peers in forums, classes, and new student orientations. MVP has also developed a community-based speaker's bureau, comprised of former high school and college athletes who are trained to conduct MVP sessions in schools and community organizations. The MVP Project is one of the few national programs that utilizes the power of sports and student-athletes in the prevention of gender violence. MVP is part of the national training team for Athletes in Service to America, an Americorps program serving communities in five states. The MVP Project also trains professional staff members of colleges and universities, as well as providing curricular materials, that facilitate local implementation and make the program self-sufficiently active and visible. The following is one scenario from the college version of the Female Student-Athlete Playbook: FOUL BALL MVP Project You're hanging out on campus with some of your friends. Another friend walks up to your group. As she does, several men sitting near you make "catcalls" and call her a "slut" and a "ho." Your friend is obviously upset, but no one in your group says anything. TRAIN OF THOUGHT: Is it true what they're saying? .....Does that matter? .....Why aren't my friends speaking up?.....If I remain silent, am I endorsing the behavior of these men? .....If I speak up, will they harass me?.....Do I have a responsibility to my friend?.....What should I do? OPTIONS: 1. Keep quiet. 2. Tell my friends that we should confront the men about their sexist attitudes, but don't pursue it if they are uninterested. 3. Tell the men their comments are sexist and offend me, and that sexual harassment is a crime. 4. Say nothing now. Later talk to my friends about how we can confront sexism and harassment. 5. Personal Option: The Playbook scenarios are designed to initiate discussion and to formulate options on how to confront sexual harassment, rape, and battering. For more information contact: Michelle King, MVP Project Coordinator Northeastern University Center for the Study of Sport in Society The MVP Program is flexible enough to fit individual scheduling needs. For the program to be most effective for students, MVP recommends a minimum of 14 hours of gender violence prevention training divided in the following manner:
MVP
Trainings
The MVP
Playbook The MVP
Supplemental Exercise and Curriculum Guide Goals
for 2000
Year in
Review Since 1993, MVP has worked with over 24,000 people. MVP staff has presented to students from 75-80 high schools and middle schools in Massachusetts and 58 colleges and universities in Massachusetts and throughout the country, as well as making numerous presentations at professional conferences and for youth and community groups. Funded in part by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the MVP Program motivates men and women to work together in preventing men's violence against women. ------------------------------- Jackson Katz is the founder and director of MVP Strategies, an organization that provides gender violence prevention training and materials to U.S. colleges, high schools, law enforcement and military services, agencies, community organizations, and small and large corporations. http://www.jacksonkatz.com/ |
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