Project SURVIVE is a peer education program of the Women's Studies department at City College of San Francisco which trains students to make classrooms presentations on promoting healthy relationships. Peer educators, both women and men, suggest resources and information to help students build intimate relationships based on respect and trust. They also offer students strategies for identifying, avoiding, and leaving abusive relationships.

Although Project SURVIVE focuses on ending sexual violence, the program is dedicated to ending all forms of power abuse in relationships--both gay and straight--and in social groups and public institutions.

By focusing on the real problem of violence against women while at the same time acknowledging the potential for abuse by anyone, the program offers City College students an honest treatment of a serious problem confronting all of us.

Project SURVIVE holds to the principle that violence is a public health problem that can be alleviated, in part, through prevention education. The most empowering aspect of Project SURVIVE is that students deliver solutions to their peers in frank, open discussions. They approach the subject in a non-threatening, hopeful manner. Audiences are always receptive and often enthusiastic. Evaluations indicate that students appreciate learning from their peers--people they can identify with and trust.

Project SURVIVE has been visiting classrooms since 1993. We visit 200 classrooms each academic year, serving approximately 4,000 students.

Project SURVIVE is a member of the Expect Respect SF collaborative, a group of San Francisco rape and intimate partner violence intervention and prevention programs. Other member organizations are SF Women Against Rape, Community United Against Violence, The Riley Center, La Casa de las Madres, Health Initiatives for Youth, and Shalom Bayit. The collaborative works to promote healthy and violence-free dating among all youth through youth-centered, culturally sensitive education.

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