Tanya Tatum, Director of FAMU Health Services
and principal investigator of the Avon grant.
The Avon Foundation for Women Awarded Florida A&M University a $10,000 grant for Dating Abuse Education Prevention. This is the first year FAMU has received funding from the Avon Foundation for Women.
The Avon Foundation educates numerous amounts of student groups and faculty members to recognize warning signs of abuse, and promotes students to intervene safely to prevent violence.
The grant itself will fund FAMU’s Student Health Services to reduce sexual assault, stalking and dating abuse. The program will provide preventive measures to activate bystanders, educate and promote healthy relationships as well as offer local resources.
“We want students to be aware and not second guess themselves,” Tanya Tatum, director of Health Services at FAMU and principal investigator of the grant said
Funding from the grant will provide training in the nationally recognized Green Dot Program.
“The grant is a program where training is required in order for the students to gain more information and to learn specific strategies for bystander intervention,” Tatum said.
The grant program will create awareness, help recognize the warning signs of abuse and encourage students to safely intervene to help prevent violence.
Ola Lamar Sheffield, director of information and publication services at FAMU said that they are definitely proactive on speaking out against domestic violence.
“The results from this grant will hopefully address and resolve challenges of the FAMUly in the prevention of any kind of violence,” Sheffield said.
Young women, ages 16-24 experience a higher rate of dating violence, stalking and sexual assault.
Darielle Tucker, a fourth-year childhood education student at FAMU is excited to hear about the implementation of a program promoting bystander intervention and preventing sexual assault.
“I have been around situations that have happened on campus that have made me uncomfortable as a woman,” Tucker said.
For more information about the Avon Foundation for Women, visit www.avonfoundation.org