Recognizing Sexual Assault Awareness Month in April, the Alexandria Sexual Assault Response and Awareness (SARA) Program exhibited The Clothesline Project throughout the community for the third year. On display at Alexandria's Northern Virginia Community College campus and Landmark Mall, vividly decorated t-shirts were strung on a clothesline to bear witness to violence against women and their strength to survive! The SARA Program held a t-shirt decorating night and two displays in April to create a forum for women to "break the silence."

The Clothesline Project began in 1990 when members of the Cape Cod Women's Agenda hung a clothesline across the village green in Hyannis, Massachusetts with 31 shirts decorated by survivors of assault, rape and incest. Women viewing the clothesline came forward to create shirts of their own and the line kept growing. Since the first display, The Clothesline Project has grown through cooperation with schools, universities, State Houses, shopping malls, churches, and women's events. An estimated 35,000-50,000 shirts have been made.

"Doing the laundry has always been considered women's work and in the days of close-knit neighborhoods, women often exchanged information over backyard fences while hanging their clothes out to dry," said Carol A. Chichetto of East Dennis, MA, quoted from www.now.org, the NOW organization website. "The concept is simple. Let each woman tell her own story in her own unique way and hang it out for all to see. It was and is a way of airing society's dirty laundry."

Creating opportunities for people to learn and speak openly about sexual assault and abuse is a main goal for the SARA Program. Other outreach activities during the month of April included poster distribution to local organizations, book displays at Alexandria public libraries, and community presentations. Always working to get the information into the public's hands, SARA volunteers and staff hit the streets of Alexandria, stopping in local establishments to pass out matchbooks printed with the SARA hotline number.

The SARA team is excited with the results of this year's events and has high hopes for sharing The Clothesline Project again next April. Thank you to the survivors who were available at Landmark Mall to speak out against sexual violence toward women and encourage others in knowing that they are not alone.