The Mosaic House on campus is the center for equality and diversity on campus, and they offer a number of training activities and events to students for free. Anyone on campus can stop by to lounge and study, grab some homemade food, or join an event. Something special that the house offers is safe zone training, which takes 1-3 hours of any day, in order for you to be safe zone trained. This is what it means, what the training is, and why you should definitely go.
What is a Safe Zone?
A safe zone is a physical space, like a dorm room, office, floor, or building where anyone that enters will be treated without judgment or disrespect, and differences will not be acknowledged. In a safe zone, any and all communities are welcome, and their members are free to be treated equally to everyone else, including religious affiliation, sexual orientation, gender, race, and any other group.
What is Safe Zone Training?
Getting trained for safe zone affiliation takes at least an hour, and less than three. You can call or stop by the house to schedule ahead of time. Being trained means you get to sit in the house in the main room, and watch a presentation from Stephanie Collins. The presentation covers a number of topics, from gender expression, to LGBT+ issues and inequalities. The purpose of the training is for you to be educated in topics that are rarely covered in any class. After that, you will get a tag that you can hang up to mark your safe zone area.
Results of Safe Zone Training
Your tag for safe zone will go anywhere that you want, like your room, a study room, a lounge, et cetera. Any area that you feel you can control as a safe space for people on campus to come to and feel safe will do. It is rare that students who are safe zone trained are approached by students they do not know, but your safe zone can help your friends and people you live with. Hence, you don’t need to feel the pressure of having strangers knocking on your door, but you will be given the free education on topics that you can use to help others.
Transform an area!
Get a group of friends to go to training together, and all pick zones near each other, so you can form a community that is there for others, and transform a location into something new. Safe zones can be something really serious, but there are definite ways to make it very fun.
How it Changes Your College Experience
We all have different majors, we all came from different places, we are all very different people on campus. We all have differences. However, it is our goal to make this a campus where people can feel safe, respected, and equal, despite any differences. Safe zone training just helps provide you with the topics you need to know and understand in order to be a reliable person that others can go to for problems and concerns. Having a safe zone means you could be the difference for someone with anxiety, suicidal thoughts, family troubles, or anything else.
Do not try to argue with me that 1-3 hours of one day of your life spent watching a presentation is not worth the capability of saving someone’s life, because I will argue back. If you have any values, from feminism, to equality, and justice, put that to good use. You don’t have to have a career trying to change the world, traveling at the expense of years of work, when all you need to do is help change this campus in one way or another.