VOP Home Page

Ways to Get Involved

Special Events

• Sponsor a "White Ribbon Campaign" in your community to raise awareness of victims of pornography and ways of prevention.  Involve your libraries, retailers, schools, health and mental health facilities, and law enforcement officials, for example. Ask local celebrities, i.e., newscasters, politicians to wear ribbons during the month of May.
• Hold a recognition event during May to publicly thank "partners for prevention," child protection workers, rape crisis center workers, law enforcement officials including prosecutors, a media personality , or others who have made a significant contribution. Invite the media.
• Plan a special program and hold an open house at your headquarters, or the police station, rape crisis or women's center.
• Host a corporate breakfast/luncheon/dinner in May to introduce your organization and its board, its mission, philosophy and programs to the business community. Invitations from peers seem to improve attendance.
• Organize an event to benefit victims, a rape crisis center, or other organization, (someone other than yourself) who assist victims, or advocates in this battle.  Find underwriters for the cost of the event, so any money raised goes directly towards the cause/organization recognized. If it's a local rape or women's center, this can be a wonderful community bridge-builder, especially if you recognize volunteers!
• Organize and challenge colleagues from other organizations, businesses, sports teams, radio stations for a fundraising/public relations event in some sporting event.
• Sponsor a "fill your mind with good things" children's book drive in May. Donate the books to a domestic violence shelter, a local organization serving children and youth or to a program that serves young parents.
• Donate to church and/or county libraries 4-8 good books, such as "An Affair of the Mind" or "The Centerfold Syndrome" by Donna Ferguson, addressing the issue of pornography and its victims.
• Encourage local churches to host a support group for victims of pornography.
• Contact a shopping mall near you and plan a special event -- an exhibit of information, video-tape playing, poignant letters, etc. Have a celebrity or politician participate in a speech or concert.  Shopping malls are increasingly popular places for commemorative month activities.
• Get a business person to donate money or ask billboard companies to sponsor several billboards to commemorate NATIONAL VICTIMS OF PORNOGRAPHY AWARENESS MONTH. This billboard can list events and dates planned.
• Perhaps a theme could be built around Mother's Day.
• For Mother's Day, get a petition with quotes from moms on why we are celebrating victims of pornography month and call it "Moms Against Porn." Get public officials, or mothers who are public officials, pastor's wives, and community leaders, to sign this petition. Then, buy a full-page ad in the Mother's Day newspaper issue.
• For Father's Day, celebrated last week in May, do the same activities as for Mother's Day except it's called "Dads Against Porn."
• Men coming out week: Find men in your community, if possible, who have credible stories on how pornography has harmed their lives. Have these men, as well as others, write letters to the editor. Also, try to get these same men to do radio and television interviews sharing their stories. Have men speak on how pornography caused harm to them when they were young boys, and the negative effect that it had on them in those early developmental stages.
• Pornography destroys marriages:  Have several couples along side of men telling their stories how pornography is anti-relationship, and that it destroys intimacy. Have the men tell how pornography wounds their ability to see women as people, not objects. Showcase marriages who have been through it and are able to offer hope to those couples who need help.
• Tie into any child abuse prevention month activities (April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month) that could be carried over into May.  Good opportunity for coalition bridge-building.
• Plan and conduct teacher/counseling training programs during May using VICTIMS OF PORNOGRAPHY AWARENESS MONTH as a context.
• Plan a motorcade where you have all the cars drive a planned route, all driving with white ribbons fixed to the antennas, bumpers, etc. Have at least one with public officials in a convertible car .The final destination should be a stop at the mall or an area big enough to have keynote speakers.
• Hold a kid's concert at a downtown mall, have a celebrity speak, and put stickers on display in all the stores in the mall that are family-friendly.  Could perhaps use Janeen Brady's "Safety Kids. Protect Their Minds" songs and workbook as part of the concert program.
• Host a "Relational and Sexual Wholeness" seminar with several speakers on sex and pornography, addiction, sexual abuse, true intimacy, the harms of pornography, rape crisis professionals, etc.
• Conduct an educational outreach to therapists and counselors, providing them with resources and help make the connection for them, linking sexual victimization to pornography.
• Work with schools to encourage special "personal safety" programming for children during May -use speakers, videos, puppet shows, for example. Try to plug into existing child abuse curricula (like a "good touch/bad touch" program) getting them to expand their definition of abuse to include pornography.
• Work with PTA's and other school-affiliated parent groups on addressing child safety on the Internet (from pedophiles and pornography).
• Hold a statewide conference for educators focusing on the connections between pornography and sexual victimization (particularly with the Internet going into every school).
• Ask elementary schools in your area to send copies of "Child Safety on the Internet" brochures through schools in your community.(sample copy from EIE enclosed. feel free to duplicate).
• Reach out to the college campuses, especially the women's health centers and those that enforce sexual harassment prevention activities. Provide educational material or offer to join them in hosting some kind of event.  Speak at human sexuality classes about how pornography shapes or affects our attitudes towards sexuality.