Sexual Abuse is often the Elephant in the Room and PARCS have been using this as a way of consciousness raising in the local Portsmouth and Hampshire communities since The Survivors Trust first launched the concept in 2014.  

Since 2016 PARCS have taken their 10ft inflatable Elephant to hundreds of events across the county including Victorious Festival and Portsmouth Pride. The Elephant also completed the Great South Run in 2018, supported round the 10 mile course by some of the PARCS team.

During the pandemic PARCS has created a new campaign #weallhavethepowertoshrinktheelephant aimed at not only raising consciousness of the elephant in the room out in their local community but during lockdown, to highlight how HOME is not always a safe place for survivors of sexual abuse no matter how long ago the abuse happened.

This campaign has been created and designed in consultation with a group of young women aged 18-24 years as part of a new and exciting activism project at PARCS funded by Esme Fairbairn. The young women wanted to highlight the potential impact of covid-19 on survivors of sexual abuse and the trauma that they already live with. While the focus, during this pandemic, has been on highlighting domestic abuse (and this is much needed) the group felt that the impact of sexual violence had been lost. The posters have been created by local design student, Catherine Rowland, 19 and the campaign was launched last week on the charities social media platforms.

For more information on PARCS (members of The Survivors Trust) visit www.parcs.org.uk and please follow @PARCSRapeCrisis