Empowering Young Men In Ending Sexual Exploitation

Fall Update

September, 2015

This week marked the beginning of another school year, and Chicago’s half-million students are back in their desks.  CAASE’s educators hope to build upon the success of last year and expand the total number of school partners from 20 to 25.  The team has already begun scheduling workshops with existing partners, and has had promising meetings with potential partners.  Adding five more schools to the list seems like a very attainable goal for the 2015-16 school year.

One of the greatest contributing factors to the ability to increase capacity has been the team’s increase in size.  This year the CAASE prevention team will have an additional educator, bringing the total to three.  The team is ready to get back in the classroom and attended some training over the summer to help prepare.  The Communities in Schools Chicago Summer Institute offered seminars on teaching in a trauma-informed manner.  Given the sensitive nature of topics covered in the Empowering Youth programs, this was incredibly helpful to the whole team.

In addition to reaching out to high schools, CAASE is excited to announce that it will also be launching a prevention education program on college campuses.  It’s going to be SWEET.  The program, Students Working to End Exploitation and Trafficking, will be unveiled later this fall, and CAASE’s educators hope to bring the SWEET program to at least three colleges in Chicago.

As always, thank you for your continued support of our prevention education efforts.  It is only through your generosity that we are able to reach thousands of students each year and equip and empower them to stand as allies against sexual violence and exploitation.  As one young man said last year, “It’s really important to think about these things, and spread awareness about it.”  You helped him do that.  Thank you.

Progress Report on the Implementation of

CAASE’s Prevention Curricula:

Empowering Young Men to End Sexual Exploitation and

Empowering Young Women to End Sexual Exploitation

June, 2015

June not only means warmer weather and sunshine, but it also means that the school year is over.  The 2014-15 school year was tremendously successful for the CAASE prevention education team.  CAASE’s educators worked with over 2,000 students in 20 different high schools across Chicago.  These numbers, however, only tell part of story.  Let’s let the students tell the rest of it.

Here’s how students responded to the program this year:

• “From now on, I will not call girls discriminating or dehumanizing names.”  When a man objectifies and dehumanizes a woman with his language, he becomes complicit in her exploitation.  Following the program, 75% of the young men said they would no longer engage in this behavior.
• “From now on I will try to help out friends in unhealthy relationships.”  The majority of commercial sexual exploitation begins as a romantic relationship that becomes more and more unhealthy.  Following the program, 17% of the students indicated that they felt empowered to help a friend avoid this situation.
• “I learned that strip clubs are not fun, and are not very safe.”  After learning about the realities of strip clubs, both young men and young women said that they would not patronize strip clubs, nor would they let their friends do so.  On a scale of 1 to 9, with 9 being very likely, most students rated their desire to go to a strip club as a 1 following the program.  Most rated their desire as a 9 beforehand. 

Thank you for your support of our efforts.  Students who have completed the Empowering Youth to End Sexual Exploitation programs went on to say that the programs have “opened my eyes and brought more clarity along with awareness to this topic” and have inspired them to “respect everyone regardless of their gender” and to “raise awareness through social media.”  Please continue to support CAASE’s prevention team as we continue to empower the young men and women of Chicago to make a difference.