Students and faculty marched from Alumni Arena to the Ellicott Complex Thursday night as part of the national Take Back the Night event.
Take Back the Night is a rally that helps raise awareness of all forms of sexual violence. The event has been going on at UB since the 1970s and Sub Board I, Inc. Health and Safety Services have led the event for the past few years.
“It’s an opportunity to bring students together and gain awareness on a really important event, share experiences and feel understood by students who’ve been in similar situations,” said Anna Sotelo-Peryea, a violence prevention coordinator at UB.
This year, there was a partnership with UB Athletics and the Office of Equity, Diversion and Inclusion to pool funding for guest speaker Byron Hurt. He is a recognized documentary filmmaker, writer and anti-sexist activist and has been working to prevent violence against women and girls.
Hurt came from a college athletics background and spoke to UB Athletics teams, student leaders, peer education groups, UB Men’s Group and Greek life organization groups about sexual violence prevention on college campuses.
Gabriela Julia is the senior news editor and can be reached at gabriela.julia@ubspectrum.com. Follow her on Twitter at @GabrielaaJulia.
