UNH Today

Welcome back to campus, Wildcats!

You can expect to hear from me a lot more this year, so let’s get to know each other a bit. My name is Jordyn Haime, and I’m currently a senior journalism and international affairs dual major here at UNH. I’ve been a volunteer with the Sexual Harassment and Rape Prevention Program (SHARPP) since my first year here; I started out as a community educator, later became a peer advocate and now continue those volunteer roles in addition to my position as the communications and marketing assistant. Most blog and social media posts you’ll see here and on our Instagram and Twitter accounts will be from me.

With a new academic year starting up, there’s a lot to talk about, including how this time of year can be the most dangerous for first-year students and what you can do to be an active bystander. But there’s a lot more you can do on campus beyond bystander intervention. By volunteering with us, you can make a huge difference in your community.

There’s a reason I’ve decided to dedicate so much of my time in college to SHARPP. I knew about it before I even got to UNH; I remember reading the entire website and signing up for the community educator training as soon as the application was available because I knew this was an issue that I deeply cared about and wanted to be part of. But on top of my passion for what SHARPP represents, being part of something this important has also defined much of my college career. I’ve had the opportunity to coordinate exhibitions and awareness campaigns, lead volunteer meetings, work one-on-one with survivors, develop my public speaking and interpersonal skills and meet so many amazing people along the way.

By volunteering with SHARPP, you’ll get to learn in-depth about violence prevention and work to create real change, but you’ll also build up a wealth of experiences and skills that you can take with you after college, wherever you go.

Sound like something you’d be interested in? Perfect. We need volunteers like you to help us help survivors and get our message out to the UNH campus. There are two volunteer tracks you can choose from: Community Educators and Peer Advocates.

Community Educators

SHARPP community educators take our message to UNH residence halls, student organizations, classrooms, events and more. You could be passing out lemonade and hot chocolate to educate students about getting consent or helping to co-facilitate a program to students about healthy relationships. If you are passionate, outgoing and enthusiastic about social justice and preventing sexual assault on campus, we want you in this role!

To become a community educator, register for our SHARPP Leaders Institute here. The institute will be Saturday, Sept. 28, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 29, from 9 a.m. to noon.

Peer Advocates

SHARPP’s peer advocates provide confidential adovacacy and crisis intervention for survivors and people who have been affected by sexual assault, relationship abuse or stalking. Advocate volunteers staff our 24/7 crisis hotline after the SHARPP office closes and can often accompany survivors to the hospital or the police station.

To become an advocate, you must take JUST 410, a two-credit course on sexual assault, intimate partner violence, stalking, rape culture, crisis intervention, law and medical systems, Title IX and more. The course for this semester is full, but keep an eye out to sign up for next year’s class.