Case Study: Orange County Rape Crisis Center
Skills at a glance: Project design and management, communication, curriculum design, Animaker, podcast production, social media content creation (Canva, Adobe, Photoshop)
I arrived at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a Women and Gender Studies major. Within this discipline, I gained lived, witnessed, and learned experiences of the structural violence caused by sexism. So I looked for a community-based solution to the violence to not only learn more but act.
This led me to the Orange County Rape Crisis Center (OCRCC) where I was first a volunteer and then hired as the Youth Education Assistant.
When I started the role, the organization had a very successful K-12 rape prevention education program, and the beginnings of a solid social media presence. They wanted to adapt their program for national use, increase its accessibility to differently-abled and BIPOC students, and increase their digital advocacy reach.
So I expanded my skills and produced results.
The Skills
I taught their program for a year and mended some of the gaps that could make it successful not only for districts nationally but for BIPOC students and those differently-abled.
Once the pandemic shifted the education landscape, I transitioned the program virtually so that students could continue achieving the important learning competencies. I taught myself to create an animated video using Animaker software to make virtual programming appealing.
To address digital advocacy, I taught myself podcast design and production to create the P.P.E podcast, and I created several digital campaigns on social media targeting youth.
The Results
As a result, the programs were able to be taught in classrooms even in the absence of in-person learning and the OCRCC was able to find a financial and organizational incentive in standardizing the curriculum for national use. Additionally, I increased traffic to the website with the podcast and increased social media engagement with the campaigns.