Owens Community College students are raising society’s awareness of violent crimes against women by
serving as host to a Silent Witness Project public display and a Community Resource Fair on Wednesday.
The public is encouraged to join the campus community at the event.
Owens’ Silent Witness Project will be on display from 9:30 a.m. – 3 p.m. in the Center for Fine and
Performing Arts Rotunda on the Oregon Road campus in Perrysburg Township.
Representatives from both the YWCA and The Cocoon Shelter in Wood County will also be on hand throughout
the day in the center rotunda distributing information and literature about domestic violence and
violent crimes against women. The overall educational awareness program is coordinated by Owens student
Erin Smith of Northwood as part of a community activism project in her Multicultural Diversity in the
United States class.
The Silent Witness Project at Owens is being presented in collaboration with the Northwest Ohio chapter
of the Silent Witness Project, which was established by the Women’s Center at Bowling Green State
University in 2001 in response to the 2000 murder of a college graduate. Currently, there are 55
silhouette witnesses in the local collection; Owens will display 15 of them.
Bowling Green’s Silent Witness Project is a visual display of free-standing, life-sized red wooden
figures that are silhouettes of women who have been murdered in an act of domestic violence during the
last 10 years in Northwest Ohio. Each silhouette includes an individual chest plate as well as a
detailed story about the person’s life and
murder. The goal of the project is to raise the awareness of domestic murders and violence and remember
those who lost their lives as a result of an act of violence.
The Silent Witness National Initiative was established in 1990 in Minnesota with the goal of creating 26
life-sized wooden figures, each bearing the name of a woman whose life was ended abruptly and violently
at the hands of a husband, ex-husband, partner or acquaintance. An additional figure was added to
represent those uncounted women whose murders went unsolved or were erroneously ruled accidental. The
organizers called the figures the Silent Witnesses.
The Women’s Center will unveil the latest silhouette additions to its Silent Witness Project display as
part of an unveiling ceremony at 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 5 at Dayspring Church in Bowling Green.
For more information about Wednesday’s event call (567) 661-7583 or 1-800-GO-OWENS, ext. 7583.