The Clothesline Project in Orange County gives survivors a way to make their voices heard
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When the Clothesline Project in Orange County began nearly 24 years ago, there were only eight T-shirts on the line.
Representing the unheard voices of those affected by violence and sexual assault, the clothesline with the colorful cotton shirts was created by nonprofit Waymakers in 2001 to raise awareness during April’s Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
“Today we have about 1,300 T-shirts and to us, they are each the voice of a survivor’s and we honor them wholeheartedly,” said Vanessa Reyna, program director for Waymakers’ Victim Assistance Programs.
A survivor has created a message sharing their personal experience with sexual assault on each of the shirts, some writing out their story, some sharing mantras of empowerment and strength, others using art to convey their feelings. The different colors represent the type of assault, with red, pink and orange signifying rape; green and blue representing child sexual abuse; gray, human trafficking; purple, rape due to sexual orientation; black, sexual harassment; white, homicide and yellow, domestic violence.
Each April, the installation visits Orange County college campuses where students can view the display and write on a T-shirt of their own.
“The display has a two-fold purpose,” Reyna said. “One, of course, is education. This is more impactful than statistics because it helps represent and illustrate an individual here in our local community. The additional purpose is it really empowers the survivor to share, in a safe way, the biggest message they want to convey about their experience at their level of comfort.”
Waymakers has served Orange County for nearly 50 years, providing sexual assault and rape crisis services to local survivors, including a 24-hour crisis hotline. The organization also offers one-on-one peer counseling, support groups, extensive education programs and a primary prevention focus that works with men’s groups. Reyna said Waymakers serves between 2,500 and 3,000 survivors of sexual assault each year in Orange County alone and nearly 60,000 victims of crime.
The growth in the number of T-shirts over the years isn’t necessarily an indicator of increased assaults, but rather a measure of the way survivors have found their voices and the work Waymakers does to help achieve that.
“We are very mindful of using the term survivors and many times we use survivor and victim interchangeably and we recognize that someone maybe labeled as a victim because they experienced something they never should have experienced,” said Reyna. “But we do also want to reframe and remind them they have survived, they have survived something unthinkable.”
The installation lined the main walkway to the Titan Student Union at Cal State University Fullerton’s campus on Wednesday. A monarch butterfly landed on one of the blue T-shirts that represents child abuse, a touching moment a student captured with a cellphone photo.
“We have brought the Clothesline Project to Cal State Fullerton the last number of years,” said Brett S. Goldberg, Ph.D., assistant director of advocacy services and community engagement with Titan Thrive, part of the Titan Health Umbrella. “This is the third year since I have been here, and we put it right on Titan Walk, which is one of the central thoroughfares of campus.”
Goldberg said the installation is an opportunity for students to read stories and raise awareness about how common violence is. The project also aligns deeply with Titan Thrive.
“We support students, faculty and staff here on campus who have experienced sexual or domestic violence and that can also include dating violence, stalking, sexual- and gender-based harassment,” said Goldberg. “We do events throughout the year about healing and solidarity, as well as individualized services based on the need. This is an important event where we can partner with Waymakers, who we work throughout the year in a different capacities, at such a public scale which we don’t often get for our line of work.”
Next, the installation heads to Irvine Valley College on April 29, followed by Cypress College on May 7.
Waymakers’ 24-hour confidentially hotline is available at (714) 957-2737. Reyna says they always welcome volunteers.
“Volunteerism is down nationwide but for our crisis centers, especially because we are 24/7, we have been feeling it, ” said Reyna. “Many of volunteers are survivors themselves.”
For those interested in getting more involved with Waymakers’ programs, a training session is scheduled for July. For for more information, email prevention@waymakersoc.org.
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