On Thursday April 30th, WEDVC (Women’s Empowerment at Diablo Valley College) hosted an event in the library Forum featuring a screening of the critically acclaimed documentary “The Hunting Ground” as well as a guest speaker who was featured in the film.

The event along with the screening of the film was a movement to bring awareness to the overwhelmingly pressing yet taboo subject of sexual assault on college campuses throughout the country. Vice President of WEDVC Janelle Spark spoke in praise of the film and highlighted the “invisible war” fought against sexual assault on college campuses “April is the month of sexual assault awareness, and as it stands now 1 in 5 women are sexually assaulted on college campuses” also criticizing the lack of initiative to prevent such attacks by university administration “… and the film points out flaws in the university systems that must be fixed in order to prevent sexual assaults on college campuses in the future”.

WEDVC member Johnleigh Dean also noted the importance of such events and the organization in general to raise awareness and bring light to these tragic occurrences on college campuses nationwide “WEDVC’s goal for events like these are to bring as much awareness as possible to issues like sexual assaults on college campuses….we always think it wont happen to us or someone we know but it can happen to anyone and can traumatize someone’s life and unfortunately the punishment for such crimes aren’t hard enough and most of the time just end up as a slap on the wrist.”