Consent carnival to raise awareness

April 19 is a very special day for Avalon Luehman, Grace Baker, Nicole Daggett, Faith Jameson, and Dreyton Drost. The long-awaited Consent Carnival project they’ve worked on all semester is finally happening. 

Drost, a Gender and Women’s Studies major, is an integral part of the project. 

“We started talking about this project at the beginning of the semester,” she said. “There are five people in my group, so it is really hard to work on five schedules. We didn’t really get started until about two months ago.” 

The Consent Carnival is an event to raise awareness regarding what consent is and what it’s not. 

“We want to advocate for consent on campus and raise awareness of sexual assault. We also wanted it to be presented in April because it’s National Sexual Assault Prevention Month. It has been working out perfectly,” said Drost. 

The event will contain many mini-games representing consent. 

“We are preventing making the carnival depressing. We’re bringing a light to it,” expressed Drost. “There are many different organizations that are going to be represented. For example, Planned Parenthood and Student Health Services. We also reached out to Title Nine.” 

Sexual assault is an act in which one intentionally sexually touches another person without that person’s consent, or coerces or physically forces a person to engage in a sexual act against their will. It is a form of sexual violence, which includes child sexual abuse, groping, rape, or the torture of the person in a sexual manner. If you ever feel like you are in an uncomfortable situation sexually, call, 1-800-656-4673. 

“We just want to advocate for safe sex consent on campus. We also have a survey to look at the effectiveness of a sexual assault prevention module. We are also going to have students take the survey in person at the carnival to get in-person results,” said Drost. “It’s important because a lot of people do not know how to draw the line. When someone is intoxicated, they cannot consent, this is important for college kids to understand. We feel this carnival will be a positive step to sexual assault prevention”.

Header photo: Avalon Luehman, Grace Baker, Nicole Daggett, Faith Jameson and Dreyton Drost are hosting a consent carnival as part of a project. (Courtesy Avalon Luehman)

Write to Jade Jackson at jadelyn.jackson@mnsu.edu