With violence against women at the forefront of a national conversation, the Obama administration launched a new initiative that it hopes will reduce the number of sexual assault incidents that take place on college campuses, Al-Jazeera reports.
The It’s on Us campaign “seeks to engage college students and all members of campus communities in preventing sexual assault in the first place,” the White House said in a press statement Friday.
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President Barack Obama and his team locked down an impressive cast of actors, athletes and musicians to drive home the message in a four-minute promotional video that is featured on the campaign’s website, ItsOnUs.org. Some of Hollywood’s biggest celebrities, like Kerry Washington, Common, Randy Jackson, Questlove, NBA star Kevin Love and Mad Men’s John Hamm—along with Obama and Vice President Joe Biden—delivered a heartfelt plea encouraging people to be active participants in the fight against sexual assault.
“It’s on us to stop sexual assault,” Hamm says at the start of the video.
“To get in the way before it happens,” Washington chimes in, halfway through.
The website asks visitors to take a pledge to recognize and stop sexual assault and also to be aware of those situations that might lend themselves to a possible incident.
People can share news about their involvement with the campaign on their social media accounts by uploading a photo of themselves to the website. The photo will then be superimposed underneath the It’s on Us logo for sharing on Twitter or Facebook.
“The campaign also plans to release new best-practices documents to help colleges combat sexual violence, which it will post on NotAlone.gov, a central website launched earlier this year where students can find resources about sexual assault including statistics at their particular schools,” the news site reports.
Read more at Al-Jazeera.
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