Owens Community College students are looking to raise awareness about violent crimes against women by hosting a Silent Witness Project public display and a Community Resource Fair Sept. 23.

The public is encouraged to join the campus community and participate in the educational awareness program, which will be on display from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Center for Fine and Performing Arts Rotunda.

Additionally, representatives from both the YWCA and The Cocoon Shelter will on hand throughout the day to provide information and literature about domestic violence and violent crimes against women.

The program is being coordinated by Owens student Erin Smith, of Northwood, as part of a community activism project in her Multicultural Diversity in the United States class.

The Silent Witness Project at Owens is being presented in collaboration with the Northwest Ohio chapter of the Silent Witness Project, which was established by Women’s Center at Bowling Green State University. Currently, there are 55 silhouette witnesses in the local collection.

Bowling Green’s Silent Witness Project is a visual display of free-standing, life-sized red wooden figures that are silhouettes of women who have been murdered in an act of domestic violence during the last 10 years in Northwest Ohio. Each silhouette includes an individual chest plate as well as a detailed story about the person’s life and murder. Owens will display 15 of BGSU’s silhouette figures.

The goal of the Silent Witness Project is to raise awareness about domestic murders and violence and to remember those who lost their lives as a result of an act of violence.

The project began in 1990 when an advocacy group of Minnesota women artists and writers joined together with several other women’s organizations to form the Arts Action Against Domestic Violence, in response to 26 women losing their lives as result of domestic violence in Minnesota. Together with several other women’s organizations, the new Silent Witness National Initiative was established, with the goal of creating 26 free-standing, life-sized red wooden figures, each one bearing the name of a woman whose life was ended abruptly and violently at the hands of a husband, ex-husband, partner or acquaintance. An additional figure was added to represent those uncounted women whose murders went unsolved or were erroneously ruled accidental.

The organizers called the figures the Silent Witnesses.

Locally, the Northwest Ohio chapter of the Silent Witness Project was founded in 2001 by the Women’s Center staff at Bowling Green State University in response to the 2000 murder of a college graduate. In addition, the Women’s Center will unveil the latest silhouette additions to its Silent Witness Project display as part of an unveiling ceremony at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 5 at Dayspring Church in Bowling Green.

For more information about the event, call 567-661-7583 or 1-800-GO-OWENS, ext. 7583.

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