City College One Love Club is a chapter of the national, non-profit One Love Foundation, which strives to educate people about domestic violence. To try and prevent abuse at City, City College One Love was created 3 years ago to teach and discuss dating among teens and fundraise to spread awareness.
February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month which is dedicated to raising awareness, specifically around teen dating. “The reason there is a month dedicated to teaching about teen violence is that roughly 1 in 3 teens in the United States falls victim to physical, sexual, emotional, or verbal abuse from a partner each year and approximately 1.5 million high school students are abused each year by a partner,” Riley Thurman, one of the club’s current leaders, stated.
“Additionally, in the United States, 55% of all homicides are intimate partner violence related, and survivors can suffer long-term impacts such as PTSD, hypertension, and other health issues,” said Thurman.
The reason that people often end up in unhealthy relationships is that they don’t know the signs of an unhealthy relationship. At City College One Love, they’ve taught about what signs of healthy and unhealthy relationships are and how to look out for these signs. Some signs of unhealthy relationships are possessives, manipulation, belittling, and deflecting responsibility.
“To help promote education about domestic violence, the club has done fundraisers such as bake sales, dress-down days, and Bingo, which has made over $1,000,” said Fiona Shadis, the other leader of the One Love Club at Baltimore City College.
Both Shadis and Thurman note that it’s especially important to educate high schoolers who may be in new relationships and unaware of what an unhealthy relationship is.
City College One Love meets every Tuesday in room 248 and anyone is welcome to join! You can also follow the club on Instagram @onelovecitycollege to stay up to date.
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