In the beginning of this project, four main roles were introduced to us: Philanthropists, Entrepreneurs, Orators, and Engineers. We each wrote a letter to our teachers explaining the job they wanted to receive a position in, and why they would be useful in that position. I primarily chose the position of entrepreneurial because I wanted to work with business ethics. During this project, as an entrepreneur, I worked with another entrepreneur to create a business plan promoting an organization that we developed, targeted towards solving a world problem, in our case sexual harassment. We worked with a philanthropist to develop our business plan and organization. At exhibition, the entrepreneurs gave a 3 to 5 minute pitch promoting their organization and why their problem needs to be solved.
Pitch Script-Sexual Harassment
I’m Lyra, and I’m a part of a group called ‘Safety in Schools’, whose main objective is to decrease sexual harassment levels in mainly public schools, and create a safer school environment for victims.
Many studies on sexual harassment have been conducted, and the results can be shocking, considering how small of an issue it can seem, modern day. In one study, 1,632 students in 79 public schools from 8th-11th Grade, and found that 83% of the 779 girls and 60% of the 828 boys said that they have experienced some form of sexual harassment in school. Another similar study recorded that ithin 547 public high school students in grades 10 through 12, Seventy-eight percent of students reported experiencing at least one incident of sexual harassment since starting high school. If there were a requirement held for public schools’ policies to include counseling for both the victim and the perpetrator of sexual harassment, the levels of harassment in schools would hopefully decrease. Aside from counseling, raising awareness and just talking more about how important reporting sexual harassment is could reduce the issue. This will be taken into action by sending representatives who are experienced in the topic of sexual harassment to as many school districts as possible in San Diego County to raise awareness on topics like consent, defining different forms of harassment, and speaking up. The representatives will travel to various public schools performing an informative presentation on sexual harassment. Our group also believes that providing both the perpetrator and the victim with counseling and therapy could also reduce the issue. Because family life could have a lot to do with upbringing, and therefore the mental state of the perpetrator, we believe that having a counseling program in as many school districts as possible for kids with a difficult family life would create a safer atmosphere for everyone. We should also ensure that sexual harassment is clearly defined to schools through our representatives going from school to school.
Our organization's main expense is for the paying of the professional presenters who will be representing our organization. We will also need funds for the transportation of the representatives to each school district. These are our major expenses. In order to raise for those expenses, our company will create a website explaining what our mission is, and also having a place for monthly donations of any amount open to the public. We will also raise donations while traveling from school to school. Another option for us is to start a crowdfunding campaign. There are a variety of websites allowing you to create a campaign for virtually any cause. Anyone who visits our campaign page may donate any amount. To receive more donations, we will heavily promote ourselves on social media, and have a very compelling company statement and description in order to stand out from other campaigns. The main concern our company has is the lack of students reporting sexual harassment that occurs in schools, due to family life or other personal factors. Our organization’s main goal, despite how severe the issue of sexual harassment may be, is to raise as much awareness as possible in public schools and make speaking up an easier thing to do among victims and witnesses.
I’m Lyra, and I’m a part of a group called ‘Safety in Schools’, whose main objective is to decrease sexual harassment levels in mainly public schools, and create a safer school environment for victims.
Many studies on sexual harassment have been conducted, and the results can be shocking, considering how small of an issue it can seem, modern day. In one study, 1,632 students in 79 public schools from 8th-11th Grade, and found that 83% of the 779 girls and 60% of the 828 boys said that they have experienced some form of sexual harassment in school. Another similar study recorded that ithin 547 public high school students in grades 10 through 12, Seventy-eight percent of students reported experiencing at least one incident of sexual harassment since starting high school. If there were a requirement held for public schools’ policies to include counseling for both the victim and the perpetrator of sexual harassment, the levels of harassment in schools would hopefully decrease. Aside from counseling, raising awareness and just talking more about how important reporting sexual harassment is could reduce the issue. This will be taken into action by sending representatives who are experienced in the topic of sexual harassment to as many school districts as possible in San Diego County to raise awareness on topics like consent, defining different forms of harassment, and speaking up. The representatives will travel to various public schools performing an informative presentation on sexual harassment. Our group also believes that providing both the perpetrator and the victim with counseling and therapy could also reduce the issue. Because family life could have a lot to do with upbringing, and therefore the mental state of the perpetrator, we believe that having a counseling program in as many school districts as possible for kids with a difficult family life would create a safer atmosphere for everyone. We should also ensure that sexual harassment is clearly defined to schools through our representatives going from school to school.
Our organization's main expense is for the paying of the professional presenters who will be representing our organization. We will also need funds for the transportation of the representatives to each school district. These are our major expenses. In order to raise for those expenses, our company will create a website explaining what our mission is, and also having a place for monthly donations of any amount open to the public. We will also raise donations while traveling from school to school. Another option for us is to start a crowdfunding campaign. There are a variety of websites allowing you to create a campaign for virtually any cause. Anyone who visits our campaign page may donate any amount. To receive more donations, we will heavily promote ourselves on social media, and have a very compelling company statement and description in order to stand out from other campaigns. The main concern our company has is the lack of students reporting sexual harassment that occurs in schools, due to family life or other personal factors. Our organization’s main goal, despite how severe the issue of sexual harassment may be, is to raise as much awareness as possible in public schools and make speaking up an easier thing to do among victims and witnesses.
Garret Esparza, Emma Hernandez Jackson, and Lyra Farrell
Change Theory:
According to Hostile Hallways (a group that randomly selected 1632 students from 8th-11th Grade), 83% of the 779 girls and 60% of the 828 boys said they experienced sexual harassment in school. If there were a requirement held for public schools’ policies to include restrictions and possible punishments for any kind of valid sexual harassment, the levels of harassment in schools would decrease. The policies should be well-publicized and effectively implemented. Possible punishments include community service, suspension and expulsion. In extreme cases of sexual harassment possible punishments are juvenile hall, or fines. We should also ensure that sexual harassment is clearly defined to schools through representatives going from school to school. The representatives will be knowledgeable professionals on the topic of sexual harassment. They will go around to public schools performing an informative presentation on sexual harassment. The presentation will feature the following:
-Introduction: interactive questions to ask the audience
-Statistics on sexual harassment in schools
-What could possibly be counted as harassment
-Consent
-What to do if you’re the victim - report it - how to report it
-Consequences that come with any kind of harassment
-Closing Questions/answers
"Sexual Harassment in Schools." 2014. 17 May. 2016 <https://www.musc.edu/vawprevention/research/sexharass.shtml>
Company Overview:
We want to require that any form of sexual harassment comes with consequences in all schools. In order to do this, we will change the policy of all schools so that sexual harassment comes with large consequences. We will also have representatives who are knowledgeable of the subject. They will give a presentation on sexual harassment and what to do if you are a victim of sexual harassment, reporting the sexual harassment, consent, and consequences you can receive by sexually harassing someone. By doing those things we believe sexual harassment levels in schools will decrease. Possible punishments will be community service, suspension, and expulsion. In extreme cases possible punishments are fines and juvenile hall.
Mission and Objectives:
We chose to do this because there are an average of 293,066 victims a year from age 12 and older. Sexual Harassment is an issue that we want to raise awareness to middle and high schoolers about, so they will hopefully feel more inclined to make a difference in the future. If we implement our plan into a school, we believe the amount of people sexually harassed in the school will go down. By doing this we believe that sexual harassment numbers will go down in schools, but not only school. From the kids who went to the schools who saw our presentation, we think those kids will have less of a chance to commit sexual harassment in and outside of school, creating a decrease in the number of people who sexually harassed in general.
Evaluation of Industry/Issue:
The current problem is that in public schools mainly, too many students are being sexually harassed/threatened either verbally, or physically. We are focusing specifically on public schools, however we think the students who are educated on the topic of sexual harassment will be less likely to sexually harass, and they will know what to do in a situation where a friend or loved one has been harassed.
We have collected the following data:
- According to Hostile Hallways (a group that randomly selected 1632 students from 8th-11th Grade), 83% of the 779 girls and 60% of the 828 boys said they experienced sexual harassment in school.
- People get sexually harassed an average of 293,066 victims a year from age 12 and older.
- People are usually sexually harassed by the opposite gender but some people have experienced sexual harassment from the same sex.
- 79% of the people who reported themselves getting sexually harassed, were woman meaning that women tend to get sexually harassed more often than men. 21% were male.
Our plan will address the problem by creating serious punishments for people who commit sexual harassment. Being afraid of the consequences will make them they will less likely to commit sexual harassment. The representatives will let the students know the consequences, and what to do in any kind of secual harrassment-related situation so they become more aware.
One of the risks of Safety in Schools is that students don’t always report sexual harassment but students will become aware that sexual harassment should be reported through our presentations. However, some people are still afraid of reporting sexual harassment mainly for personal reasons or because they feel like they should handle the problem on their own. This is a risk because in some schools the sexual harassment rates might not decrease as much as hoped because of lack of the issue being reported.
Action Plan:
We are going to implement our plan by sending the representatives. The representatives will alert the schools and hopefully convince authorities to create solid, reasonable punishments for sexual harassment. The representatives will present to the school. We will try to go school district to school district slowly converting the schools to more justifiable punishments for sexual harassment.
Our target audience will be students from middle school to high school, the age group being 12-18. To make this happen we need representatives to go school to school and inform students about sexual harassment and consequences that could come with it. We need to involve schools to make the policy change take action.
As a group, we could design a presentation to talk to schools about, send representatives to present it to schools, and get a number of schools to change their policy in about six months.
We would like to raise enough money to pay the representatives a (good amount of money) and money for transportation of the residents from school to school.
Financials:
We will need finances for the paying of the professional presenters (the representatives ) and for transportation of the representatives to each school. These are our major and only expenses.
Our organization will be economically sustainable by our organization constantly fundraising. We will sell T-shirts, do bake sales and accept donations.
I expect our economic status in five years to be a little tight for money. Our organization relies solely upon fundraising, sales and donations to pay for transportation and professional presenters, so we might not be in the best financial position in the future.
Future Plans:
In the future, we will continue to create presentations, and send representatives all around San Diego county in about a year. We want to start small and start going around San Diego country first, and hopefully expand to surrounding areas shortly after. Also, for the future victims of sexual harassment, we will create a website for the purpose of being able to freely give donations to our organization. We will elaborate on our mission statement and how we will decrease sexual harassment. The donations may go to hospital bills of lower class victims, to support the transportation of our representatives from school to school, or general support to our organization.