#ThisGEN_YS: Media, Sports, Policy and Community Organizing to End Gender-Based Violence

Today is day two of Raliance’s ThisGEN: Youth Summit and if you have been following along on social media, you have witnessed the energy and passion for ending gender-based violence present at the summit. ThisGEN participants have connected with one another, heard from various speakers, and have been attending workshop tracks around four specific platforms – media, sport, policy, and community organizing.

The media track focuses on the ways news, social media, documentaries, music, and art influences society’s response to gender-based violence and how to leverage it as a platform to end gender-based violence. The sport track explores how sport and athletes influence society’s response to gender-based violence, and how to engage athletes, leagues, coaches, and others within the sport systems as social change agents to end gender-based violence. In the policy track, participants are exploring how policy (government structures, laws) influences society’s response to gender-based violence and how to engage policy-makers in advocacy efforts. Last but not least,  the community organizing track uncovers the ways that community-organizing efforts can make an impact and how to leverage learned skills to make communities safer.

Some highlights from the past few days include a workshop on leveraging hip hop culture to end sexual violence by  Tracy Wright of the North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault, a panel discussion including NFL Foundation’s Executive Vice President Troy Vincent, and an activism fair that included 16 partners in the movement to end gender-based violence providing information to participants.

The participants and young leaders are geared up and will voice their calls to action to end gender-based violence at Thursday’s Rally in Upper Senate Park. #ThisGENWill be the generation to end gender-based violence.