Featured Programs
Story of a Rape Survivor (SOARS) College Campaign
Through leadership trainings, public lectures and multimedia performance, SOARS empowers college students, survivors, and their allies to address campus sexual assault.Book this Event »
Story of a Rape Survivor (SOARS) is an award winning multimedia performance
that entertains as well as educates the audience about sexual assault prevention. Featuring the music of Nina Simone, Maxwell, and Sade, SOARS tells one woman’s story about how she reclaimed her body, sexuality, and self-esteem after being sexually assaulted in college. SOARS is a cutting-edge theatrical experience that stars a diverse cast of women, combining photographs, dance, spoken-word poetry and music as a way to educate about healing from sexual violence. The ultimate aim is to show that the shame, guilt and self-blame that rape victims too often experience can be eased; that the stories of rape survivors can be one of triumph and hope.Book this Event »
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The Girl/Friends Leadership Institutes
Girl/Friends Leadership Institutes empower teen girls to use art to advocate for themselves and other girls and design campaigns and policies to end dating violence, sexual assault, and street harassment in their Chicago schools and communities, ultimately changing the face of leadership in the women’s movement. A Long Walk Home has two main sites for Girl/Friends: Girl/Friends at NLCP and Girl/Friends at Mercy Home.Book this Event »
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Girl/Friends at NLCP
is a Girl/Friends Leadership Institute at North Lawndale College Prep Charter High School (NLCP). Girl/Friends at NLCP empowers adolescent girls from NLCP by offering yearlong elective classes, summer trainings, and an after school program in which the youth leaders design and implement their anti-violence campaigns. In collaboration with NLCP high school, Girl/Friends provides under-resourced teen girls, many of whom are survivors of gender violence, access to art therapists and free counseling, a comprehensive curriculum on the digital and creative arts, sexual health, and sexual and dating violence prevention, and mentors who are Chicago’s leading advocates in the movement to end gender violence.Book this Event »
Girl/Friends at Mercy Home
is a Girl/Friends Leadership Institute at Mercy Home for Boys and Girls for adolescent girls in residential care. In this peer leadership training, the residents experience a customized 10-week workshop series using the Girl/Friends Leadership Institute core curriculum areas Girl/Me, Girl/Culture and Girl/Power. Upon completion of the program, youth leaders use their skills to educate their peer residents by performing at a community showcase featuring video installations, photographs, three dimensional art, teen dating violence posters and original writing.Book this Event »
Parent Leadership Institute to End Dating and Sexual Violence
is comprised of parents and guardians of Girl/Friends youth leaders. This is the first group of its kind in Chicago and their mission is support Girl/Friends youth leadership programming as well develop strategies to engage other adults and their communities in the prevention of gender violence.Book this Event »
Lectures
The Audacity to Heal: A Public Conversation about Surviving Sexual Assault
The Audacity to Heal: A Public Conversation about Surviving Sexual Assault The Audacity to Heal includes rare and never-before-seen photos and video footage from the award-winning multi-media performance, Story of a Rape Survivor (SOARS). SOARS’s creators, Scheherazade and Salamishah Tillet, discuss the role of the arts can play in ending sexual violence, the specific challenges that victims face when they want to break silence around sexual violence, and how secondary victims of sexual violence, such as family members, friends, and intimate partners, can become allies to sexual assault survivors.Book this Event »
Our Kind of Girls: Sexual Violence and Adolescent Girls
This conversation discusses Girl/Friends, the collaborative sexual-assault prevention program between adult and adolescent girls. By sharing the results from Girl/Friends, “Our Kind of Girls” works with adult allies and school administrators to address the sexual violence experienced by their students by helping them develop a youth-led sexual assault and sexual harassment prevention curricula.Book this Event »
Change Agents: Friends, Family Members, and Partners of Survivors
This is a lecture for partners, family members, and friends to help them deal with the anger, guilt, and hurt they feel when they learn that their loved one has been sexually assaulted.Book this Event »
Rape, Popular Culture, and Post-Racial America
What is the relationship between race and sexual violence in our “post-racial” era? By looking at recent high-profile cases, pop music videos, film, feminist and legal scholarship, this lecture discusses how old racial stereotypes continue to shape public perceptions of sexual assault victims and assailants.Book this Event »
Workshops
Arts. Activism. Advocacy.
This lecture discusses how sexual assault activism and victim rights advocacy can serve as key components of sexual assault recovery, focusing on how survivor art, activism, and advocacy can be used to empower survivors and contribute to social change in the community.Book this Event »
Sexual Assault in the 21st Century: The Digital and Media Arts
The Internet has not only vastly changed the way we communicate, becoming the virtual pathways for processing information of all sorts and socializing, but it has increasingly become the hunting ground for sexual predators as well. Using new methods in art therapy and the digital arts, such as photography, projection, video, twitter, and facebook, and live feed, this talk discusses how state-of-the-art technology can empower communities and individuals to prevent and heal from sexual violence.Book this Event »
Drum Majors: Training Youth Activists to End Sexual Violence
This is a youth-led workshop that organizes high school students to end sexual assault and sexual harassment in their schools. This interactive, multi-media workshop trains high school students to design anti-violence curriculums (such as the Clothesline project),educate their peers, and advocate for sexual assault and sexual harassment prevention programs in their neighborhood as well as schools.Book this Event »
College Leaders: Working With College Students to End Campus Sexual Violence
The Young Leaders training supports and provides additional resources to college anti-violence organizations. By emphasizing the need for diversity and popular culture literacy in anti-violence programs, we work with administrators and students to devise training, recruitment strategies, community outreach, and campus education programs.Book this Event »
Safety Abroad: Addressing Sexual Assault on Study Abroad Programs
When students study abroad, they often travel without training in personal safety and an understanding of cross-cultural attitudes towards sexuality and sexual assault. This training helps administrators and students develop comprehensive study-abroad sexual assault resources, insuring that students are aware of university protocol and services for them while they are abroad.Book this Event »
Upcoming Events
Download our Calendar of Events (PDF)
Friday, April 5, 2013: 6-8pm
SOARS Multimedia Performance
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 280 S Columbus Dr., Chicago, IL
Featuring the music of Nina Simone, Maxwell, Billie Holiday and Sade, SOARS tells one woman’s story about how she reclaimed herself after being sexually assaulted in college. It stars a diverse cast of women, combining photographs, dance, spoken-word poetry and music as a way to educate about healing from sexual violence.
Saturday, April 6, 2013: 12:30-4pm
Bold Conversations at the Global Activism Expo: Restorative Justice. Gender Justice. Global Justice.
Presented by The Public Square, Social Justice Initiative at UIC, and WBEZ.
UIC Forum (725 West Roosevelt Road, Chicago)
Tuesday, April 9, 2013: 12-2pm (Closed Event)
2013 Annual Chicago for the Council of
Foundations Conference
1 Billion Rising "Break the Chain” Dance
Hilton Chicago, 720 S Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL
A Long Walk Home’s Girl/Friends youth leaders perform 1 Billion Rising "Break the Chain" Dance with VDay’s Founder and author of Vagina Monologues, Eve Ensler.
Wednesday, April 10, 2013: 4:30-5:30pm
March Anti Street Harrassment Walk
Girl/Friends youth leaders participate in the Meet Us On The Street: International Anti-Street Harassment Week Campaign by creating a youth led Anti-Street march to reclaim public spaces around their school’s community.
March starts: at 1615 South Christiana Ave Chicago IL and ends at 1313 S Sacramento Ave
Thursday, April 11, 2013: 6pm
Rape, Race, and Pop Culture" Lecture
University of Arkansas at Little Rock, auditorium of the UA Cooperative Extension Service.
Lecture by Co-Founder, Dr. Salamishah Tillet
This Lecture examines the relationship between race and sexual violence in our “post-racial” era? By looking at recent high-profile cases, such as the Steubenville, Ohio rape case, hip hop, and VAWA, this lecture discusses how old racial stereotypes continue to shape public perceptions of sexual assault victims and assailants.
Co-sponsoring a talk with the Arkansas Coalition Against Sexual Assault and the UALR School of Social Work.
Friday, April 12, 2013: 12pm
Audacity to Heal Lecture
Keynote Lecture by Co-Founder,
Dr. Salamishah Tillet
Arkansas Coalition Against Sexual Assault.
Clinton School of Public Service, Sturgie Hall
1200 President Clinton Ave., Little Rock, AR 72201
Co-Founder, Salamishah Tillet tells her personal story as a rape survivor and discusses how organizing against sexual violence is legacy of both the civil rights and the feminist movements.
Sunday, April 14: 7-9pm
Second City’s R.E.A.C.H Performance
UP Comedy Club, 230 W. North Avenue, 3rd Floor Pipers Alley, Chicago, IL
Second City’s REACH stand up and performance honors Sexual Assault Awareness Month. A Long Walk Home will also be honored for their work in the community during this performance.
Monday, April 15: 4-6pm (Closed Event)
4th Annual Clothesline Project
North Lawndale College Prep High School,
Chicago, IL
Girl/Friends youth leaders invite the school to engage in their 4th annual in the National Clothesline Project.
Wednesday, April 17: 12:15-1:15pm
All I Need Is One Mic: Poetry Slam
North Lawndale College Prep High School, Chicago IL, Collins Library
A Long Walk Home’s youth leaders, Girl/Friends host their 2nd Annual One Mic: Poetry Slam to bring awareness about sexual assault in the NLCP community and to build allies against gender violence in their school community.
Friday April 19, Dress in Teal (All day)
Teal is the color that represents sexual assault awareness. ALWH would like everyone to create awareness by dressing in teal.
Tuesday, April 23: Doors open at 7:15pm 7-9:30pm
SOARS Multimedia Performance
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Lincoln Theater
Wednesday April 24: 3-5pm
Sexual Assault in the 21st Century:
The Digital and Media Arts
Lecture by Co-Founder, Scheherazade Tillet
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Education Building Room 002
Lecture discusses how state-of-the art technology can empower communities and individuals to prevent and heal from sexual violence using new methods in art therapy and the digital arts, such as photography, projection, video, twitter, and facebook.
Wednesday April 24 7-9pm
Catharsis Productions’ “Yes! Please.”
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
112 S Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL
ALWH’s Girl/Friends Leadership Institute, youth leaders perform in Catharsis Productions’ Yes! Please. Yes! Please is a social movement and an awareness raising campaign to incite positivity and celebration around the issues and practices of enthusiastic consent. We believe that consent is to permit, approve, or agree.
Thursday, April 25: Doors open at 1:20-3:30pm (Closed Event)
SOARS Multimedia Performance
North Lawndale College Prep Charter High School- Collins Campus
1313 S. Sacramento Ave, Chicago, IL
Friday April 26: 12-1pm
Rape Victims Advocate’s Standing Silent Witness Demonstration
Daley Center, 50 W Washington St, Chicago, IL
A Long Walk Home SOARS program and Girl/Friends youth leaders participates in our partner RVA’s hour long Standing Silent Witness demonstration at the Daley Plaza. Join us in silence to demonstrate and bring awareness of the silence that survivors of sexual assault are often forced into.
Wednesday May 8: 12-1:30pm
Got Consent? Carnival
North Lawndale College Prep Charter High School- Collins Campus
1313 S. Sacramento Ave, Chicago, IL
Girl/Friends host an interactive carnival to bring awareness about Sexual Assault in their community. They will have various stalls using different ways to talk about consent and to educate the community about sexual violence.
RSVP: sangi@alongwalkhome.org
SOARS Multimedia Performance
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 280 S Columbus Dr., Chicago, IL
Bold Conversations at the Global Activism Expo: Restorative Justice. Gender Justice. Global Justice.
2013 Annual Chicago for the Council of
Foundations Conference
1 Billion Rising "Break the Chain” Dance
March Anti Street Harrassment Walk
Rape, Race, and Pop Culture" Lecture
Audacity to Heal Lecture
Keynote Lecture by Co-Founder,
Dr. Salamishah Tillet
Second City’s R.E.A.C.H Performance
4th Annual Clothesline Project
All I Need Is One Mic: Poetry Slam
SOARS Multimedia Performance
Sexual Assault in the 21st Century:
The Digital and Media Arts
Lecture by Co-Founder, Scheherazade Tillet
Catharsis Productions’ “Yes! Please.”
SOARS Multimedia Performance
Rape Victims Advocate’s Standing Silent Witness Demonstration
Got Consent? Carnival
Video News Feature: ALWH on BET/Meet the Faith w/Ian Smith
Sexual Abuse, Healing, and Faith in the African American Community
Audio News Feature: ALWH on NPR
Teens Learn Sexual Violence Prevention Via
Art Therapy
