Many victims of sexual assault live with what happened to them in silence and shame.
The
executive director of the Fredericton Sexual Assault Crisis Centre
Lorraine Whalley tells CHSJ News that less than 10% of sexual assaults
are reported to police.
This April is the third annual sexual
assault awareness month in the province. The theme of this year's
campaign is engaging youth in conversations of sexual violence. Whalley
tells us they chose to zero-in on young people to try and clear up any
misconceptions about what consent is amongst youth. She says the
approach they're taking is that yes means yes, as opposed to no means
no.
With
our province's staggering rates of functional illiteracy, you'd think
more people would be jumping on the free programs available to help
people upgrade their reading skills, but Deanna Allen of Laubach
Literacy tells CHSJ News their literacy programs are only reaching a
handful of the people that need them.
Allen
says adults who can't read well often avoid situations where they'll
need to read, and often develop some creative strategies to cope with
their sub-par literacy skills. But she says they'd like to see the
number of people enrolled in their programs double or triple. She tells
CHSJ News 60% of adults in New Brunswick are functionally illiterate,
compared to 40% for Canada as a whole.
