Progressing the rights of women and awareness of women’s issues are the main goals of one relatively young registered student organization on campus.

The Women’s Empowerment League was established two years ago and combines both awareness and activism to achieve its goals.

“We believe that our main goal as an organization is to provide awareness and promote activism surrounding gender issues,” co-president Chelsea Eversole, a psychology major, said.

She said the organization generally discusses gender issues on both a local and global level. Their programs are focused on issues that the group members and board members feel passionate about.

During this year’s election season, Eversole said the organization promoted voting and informed students about the presidential candidates. The organization also sponsored a voter-registration drive with a showing of “Iron Jawed Angels” to promote voting on campus.

The event was also aimed at raising awareness of what women suffragists went through to obtain women’s right to vote in the early 1900s, Eversole said.

The Women’s Empowerment League also participates in Girls on the Run, an after-school program for girls in third through eighth grade aimed at confronting bullying and promoting a positive self-image through running activities.

“We have played the role of Wonder Women during the event,” Eversole said. “The goal of the Wonder Women is to encourage the girls to continue forward in a positive manner and to make sure no one finishes last.”

The Clothesline Project is another project the organization has hosted in the past and will be hosting again during the spring semester.

“We hang up shirts, which are anonymous, made by individuals who have been a survivor of violence or know someone that has been affected by violence against women,” Eversole said. “The idea behind the project is to ‘air out society’s dirty laundry.’”

Da’Sha Wilbern, the organization treasurer, said The Clothesline Project is where they provide different T-shirts with someone’s story, or people can also write about someone they know.

Wilbern, a psychology major, also said the T-shirts have different colors that represent what happened to that individual, such as red for survivors of rape and sexual assault or white for those who did not survive.

Jennifer Greenberg, an English major and member of the organization, said the Women’s Empowerment League is a group based around making the campus and the community a safer and more respective place to live in.

At every meeting, members discuss upcoming events the organization is planning to participate in.

The organization tries to participate in initiatives that will better the Eastern community and broaden people’s minds to not just women’s issues, but also a variety of minority issues, Greenberg said.

“We participate in many other events—such as the Sex Positive Fair—we had a table at the Diva Drag Show and Take Back the Night,” Greenburg said. “At every event, we really try to make as many people as we can aware of women and minority rights in the most positive way we can.”

Members also discuss personal stories of how they or other students they know have felt threatened in the community, what law enforcement officials did to assist them and what laws are in place to protect and assist students.

However, students do not just talk about personal situations, Greenberg said.

“We don’t just discuss issues; we work to make change,” she said.

Cristina Medina can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].