A quilt displaying messages from sexual assault survivors, secondary survivors, and their allies will go on tour next week, starting in Arden, N.C. The activist group FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture started raising money for the project, called the Monument Quilt, in 2013 and then did another campaign this year to fund the tour. "The big idea is for there to be a permanent monument," FORCE co-director Rebecca Nagle told Cosmopolitan.com. "The quilt is a big stepping stone to getting toward the permanent monument." Nagle says the organization wants to create a public space for survivors of rape and sexual assault. "When you survive sexual assault, a lot of people feel disconnected from their community," she explains. The goal is to help survivors to feel less isolated and shamed.
FORCE has already collected 200 squares through workshops in their Baltimore studio and partnerships with groups across the country, and hopes to have 6,000 squares by 2016, at which time they'll displayed on the National Mall for a week, spelling out the words "NOT ALONE." FORCE shares images of some of the squares.
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Lori Fradkin is the executive editor of Cosmopolitan.com. She worked previously at the Huffington Post, AOL, and New York Magazine. She lives in New York with her husband, sons, and dog.
