In support of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, the Women’s Center has partnered with Residence Life to bring the Clothesline Project and Take Back the Night to UNA. Both national campaigns will take place at Memorial Amphitheater to encourage the entire campus to get involved.

The Clothesline Project, scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 16 from 9 a.m. until 3:30 p.m., is all about spreading awareness for domestic violence, said Emily Kelley, coordinator of Women’s Studies.

“It is a program whereby for the entire day, students will come by and decorate T-shirts with anti-domestic violence messages,” Kelley said. “We’ll have clotheslines strung up around (the amphitheater), and we’ll hang the T-shirts so that everyone can see them.”

The individuals designing the T-shirts are often associated with domestic violence in different ways, she said.

“We have T-shirts made by survivors of domestic violence, and sometimes made by people who were children and lived through situations of domestic violence between their parents,” Kelley said. “Some are individuals who are there just to support the cause.”

Designed T-shirts do not necessarily have to relate to domestic violence, she said.

“We also encourage people to write messages about any other causes they support,” Kelley said. “People often come to exorcise any demons that they might personally have.”

Take Back the Night, which will begin at 6 p.m. on Oct. 17, is a program often associated with the Clothesline Project, Kelley said.

“Take Back the Night is also a way to raise awareness of domestic violence, to remember survivors of domestic violence and to remember those who have perished as a result of domestic violence,” she said. “We look at the night as the darkness and the darkness as ignorance. Taking back the night is shedding light on the darkness.”

There will be a larger variety of musical entertainment at Take Back the Night this year, which is a change from years past, Kelley said.

“We’re going to have Madeleine Frankford,” she said. “We are also going to have the Bear and the Bride, and a group called the Blue Navigators.”

Take Back the Night will also host many guest speakers, Kelley said.

“We will be having speakers from Rape Response, Safe Place and Student Counseling Services,” she said. “Carl Gebhardt from our history department will be doing our concluding message for us. I hope to have a peer mentor here from Huntsville as well.”

The Women’s Center has partnered with another on-campus organization for the first time this year, Kelley said.

“We really like the idea of partnering with other departments on campus, such as Residence Life,” she said. “The whole idea of bridging together with other departments is a great idea because it shows greater cooperation between the departments.”