The Eastern Gender Coalition is sponsoring the National Clothes Line Project, to bring awareness about sexual and physical violence against women today and Wednesday.

Survivors of abuse or friends of survivors can participate in the project by decorating colored T-shirts.

Each color represents a different type of abuse and the decorated shirts will be displayed throughout campus.

Tara Crawford, the vice-president of the Gender Coalition and senior psychology major, said the project focuses on bringing awareness and helps survivors of abuse heal.

“Hopefully, the clothesline project will encourage more women to speak up against violence,” Crawford said.

Women can see they have allies and are not alone when it comes to sexual assault and abuse, she said.

The coalition is organizing the National Clothes Line project for Sexual Assault Awareness Month and this is the first time the project will be offered on Eastern’s campus, Crawford said,

If students or local residents wish to create a T-shirt they should come by the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union Bridge Lounge to decorate one or can pick up a T-shirt and decorate it at home if they do not feel comfortable making one in the lounge, Crawford said.

After a student decorates a T-shirt outside of the lounge he or she can drop off the t-shirt at the Newman Catholic Center, Jackson Avenue Coffeehouse or the office of HOPE of East Central Illinois.

The T-shirt colors represent different types of violence, said Ashley Wiberg, the secretary of the Gender Coalition and a senior English secondary education major.

White represents women who died because of violence, yellow/beige represents women who were battered or assaulted, red/pink/orange represents women who are survivors of rape and sexual assault, blue/green represents survivors of incest and sexual abuse, purple/lavender represents women attacked because of their sexual orientation, black represents women attacked for political reasons, Wiberg said.

“We encourage people to come out and take a T-shirt,” Wiberg said.

Students should come out to decorate T-shirts because they are free and helps bring awareness, she said.

The National Clothes Line Project began in Massachusetts in 1990 as a public display of colored T-shirts hung on clotheslines to represent a particular individual’s experience and may be decorated either by the survivor or someone close to her, according to a press release issued by the Women’s Studies Program.

The collation also stressed that there are other resources that are offered to victims of sexual and physical abuse such as the Sexual Assault Counseling Center (SACIS).

“It would be great if the clothesline project stops assaults on Eastern’s campus, but the project is more about healing,” Crawford said.

A student can decorate a T-shirt Tuesday or Wednesday form 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The coalition will then display the t-shirts on April 18 and 19 in the South Quad on Eastern’s campus.

Elizabeth Edwards can be reached at 581-2812

or eaedwards@eiu.edu