Iconic author Lau­rie Halse Ander­son and her pub­lisher of SPEAK are part­ner­ing with RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Net­work) to raise both funds and aware­ness dur­ing Sex­ual Assault Aware­ness Month:

 “How Speak Spoke to Me” Cre­ative Con­test allows read­ers to explore their feel­ings about Speak through what­ever medium they’d like. Write a poem, sing a song, make a movie, or draw a pic­ture. Any type of expres­sion is worth being heard. Final­ists will have their work dis­played on both RAINN’s andMacmillan’s web­sites and via their social media out­reach. The win­ner will be selected by Lau­rie Halse Ander­son and will receive a free skype visit with the author.

At this point, Lau­rie has helped RAINN raise $5000, which ins one quar­ter of its goal of rais­ing $20,000.  Twenty thou­sand seems like a lot of money, and it is for a per­son, but for a cause like end­ing sex­ual vio­lence and sup­ports that affected by it, it’s not very much money at all when you think about how many lives are for­ever dam­aged by sex­ual assault.

Guys, men, boys, dudes, gen­tle­men, males, gents: It is time for us to step up for RAINN and causes like it. While not every sur­vivor of sex­ual assault is female, most are. We all have women in out lives–mothers, wives, sis­ters, daugh­ters, nieces, cousins, friends–who have sur­vived sex­ual assault. You prob­a­bly don’t know which, because sex­ual assault is an under-reoported crime, and it sur­vivors face far more social stigma than almost those who report almost any crime. Their assaults remain invis­i­ble even to those clos­est to them, and that has to end.

Please sup­port RAINN by giv­ing a small dona­tion at the link above.  If you aren’t in a posi­tion to do that, then spread the word by for­ward­ing the info below on social media. Bet­ter yet, buy or check out a copy of SPEAK by Lau­rie Halse Ander­son. Read it, then share it with your fathers, broth­ers, sons, nephews, cousins, and friends. If sex­ual assault is to be over­come, then every­one must be part of the solu­tion, and the solu­tion begins with under­study­ing so that when the women we love need to speak, we will know how to listen.

Every 2 min­utes some­one in the U.S. is sex­u­ally assaulted.

Help Lau­rie and RAINN give sur­vivors a voice by donat­ing to the #Speak4RAINN cam­paign. Just $10 pro­vides sup­port for one vic­tim via the National Sex­ual Assault Hot­line. Check out RAINN’s dona­tion page for great incen­tives like signed books and a man­u­script cri­tique by Lau­rie. The more money you give, the more peo­ple we can help.

Spread the word about #Speak4RAINN. Fol­low Lau­rie on Twit­ter at@halseanderson and RAINN at @RAINN01 for cam­paign updates and learn how to get involved.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zabOtXWav6k