That Time of the Year Again: April CSAAM

Dear Friends,

It is that time of the year again. To poke the dragon. That time of the year when we, a team of people, gear up and talk about that topic which is taboo but which should not be; that topic which is only whispered about, hastily, fearfully, but about which we should be making a loud, deafening din; that topic which many people believe to be an urban legend but is a frightening reality on a depressingly large scale . ‘That topic’ is Child Sexual Abuse.

April 2014 is around the corner, and we are ready to spread the word in our fourth year of CSAAM. Once again, just as we have been doing for the last three years, we talk across social media, via Facebook, twitter and blogs about the menace that is CSA . All through the month of April.

This menace must stop spreading. Children must be made to feel safe. Parents need to know how to talk to their children. Survivors must know that they are not alone. We cannot do all this alone and we count on your support and participation.

Partnering us in our efforts this year will be organisations working in this field like Arpan, Tulir, Human Rights Watch as well as online initiatives like Blogadda and Womens Web. You will see personal testimonials, expert advice, twitter chats, information sources, resources, workshops, an iPhone app and lots and lots of blog posts across the blogosphere.

We understand confronting this issue is quite uncomfortable. But we also know silence is not a solution. We need to talk our minds out. We need to act. We need to support.

If you would like to post on your blogs, do send us a tentative date, so that we can schedule your post. If you would like to participate in a twitterthon, do let us know. Even forwarding this email to anyone you think might be interested in participating and contributing would be very helpful.

If you would like to add to the discussion or know somebody else who would, please note that we welcome entries:

mailed to csa.awareness.april@gmail.com OR

posted as FB notes and linked to Child Sexual Abuse Awareness Month Page OR

posted on your own blog with the badge and linked to the main blog OR

posted on your own blog with the badge and linked to the main blog OR linked or posted on Twitter tagged twitter.com/CSAAwareness OR

linked or posted on Twitter tagged twitter.com/CSAAwareness OR

Anonymous contributions are accepted and requests for anonymity will of course be honoured.

You can also support us by simply adding our logo of the initiative to your blog’s sidebar. Grab the code below to do sohttp://csaawarenessmonth.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/batch-code-txt-2013.docx

Please remember to send a mail with all necessary links or just your input to csa.awareness.april@gmail.com so that we can track your contribution and make sure that it is not inadvertently lost or missed out.

Some guidelines

Please precede the title of your post with CSAAM April 2014. Then add a hyphen and your title.

Please insert the badge html in your post. If you carry it on your sidebar for the entire month of April too part from just within your post, we would be honoured.

If you refer to sources for information kindly italicise that part of your post which is taken from the source and provide the link to the original source in a bracket.

And finally please avoid graphic descriptions of the abuse. Stay as factual as possible if you’re doing first person accounts.

We need all your help to make this month a success, and are counting on your support.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Warm regards,

CSAAM Team

http://csaawarenessmonth.com/