Our Wave: Creating a Phenomenon

We wanted to disturb the status quo when it comes to addressing sexual violence and to create an occurrence and increase of a phenomenon: story-telling.

As I began this post I struggled to figure out where to start. I knew I wanted to talk about why a wave? We could have chosen any name, but Our Wave was chosen. Why? What was the significance? For everyone on our team it bears a different meaning, I had yet to decide what that was for me. Being a person that enjoys finding out the true meaning of words I resolved to start by googling the definition of the word “wave”. I came across many different meanings. From “to move ones hand to and fro in greeting” to ” a long body of water curling into an arched form and breaking on the shore” and even a periodic disturbance of the particles of a substance which may be propagated without net movement of the particles, such as in the passage of undulating motion, heat, or sound.”

The Meaning

As I was looking through all of the definitions I noticed that there was some continuity. All of the definitions represented a disturbance of some sort. Even a friendly wave as a gesture. All of the them disturbed the peace. As I began to notice this theme being played out in the definitions one stuck out to me:

Wave: a sudden occurrence of or increase in a specified phenomenon, feeling, or emotion.

A Phenomenon

A sudden occurrence, an increase. A disturbance. That’s what led me to what the title “Our Wave” meant to me. We wanted to disturb the status quo when it comes to addressing sexual violence and to create an occurrence and increase of a phenomenon: story-telling. Allowing survivors to share stories without fear of shame, retribution, or self-doubt. We wanted to create a sudden phenomenon of powerful story telling. We wanted a wave of stories. Our Wave, not just us here within the organization, but the population at whole who has been impacted in some way, shape, or form by sexual violence.

Whatever you associate with waves, know this. They are an unstoppable, powerful, and beautiful force. Just like every story that will be shared on this platform.