Ali Safran wanted to turn the anniversary of the date she was sexually assaulted into something positive. The Mount Holyoke College senior didn’t expect the resulting project in its first year to grow into a nonprofit corporation that inspired legislation in California and created classroom lessons used as far away as Turkey.
Safran, now 21, launched Surviving In Numbers on April 1, 2013 — the start of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. She invited other victims of sexual assault to write on poster board what happened as a result of the attacks, with numbers, then photographed each person holding the poster in front of their face. She arranged to display the photos on campuses in Massachusetts. Word spread. The number of posters grew.
One year later, Surviving In Numbers has helped tell the story of 410 survivors, collected 2,200 Tumblr followers and has had visitors from 12 countries.
James' World 2 