One-in-Four takes message to the road

Members of the group One-in-Four left Williamsburg last week for a nine-month national tour that will continue bring sexual assault prevention education to more and more college campuses across the country. The four men, all recent college graduates, set out August 24 in an RV for a road tour that will take them to other college and university campuses, as well as some military bases, across the country.

This is the third year One-in-Four has conducted a national RV tour. Two of the men traveling on the RV are William and Mary graduates.

“This is an opportunity to take a year of my life to dedicating myself to making a difference,” said James Ambrose, William and Mary Class of ’07.

One-in-Four is an all-male sexual assault peer education group. The national organization – founded by William and Mary Assistant Professor of Education John Foubert -- now has 30 chapters at colleges and universities across the country, including William and Mary. The organization gets its name from the national statistic that one in four college-age women report surviving rape or attempted rape since their 14th birthday.

Deciding to dedicate the time to the tour wasn’t an easy choice, Ambrose said. But in the end he chose to “give up the comfort of corporate America for the unknown, the uncertain. What put me over the top,” he continued, “was I felt led to make a difference. Corporate America will always be there.”

Ambrose is joined on the tour by fellow William and Mary classmate J.T. Newbury, as well as recent University of Illinois graduate Dan Mollison, and University of North Carolina graduate Jor-El Caraballo. The program approaches men as potential helpers instead of potential assailants. It teaches them ways to help a friend recover from rape.

“[To end rape], “it’s extremely important to reach out to men,” Mollison noted. “To end rape, it has to come from men choosing not to rape. This program is particularly good at awakening men to this issue.”

Nearly two dozen faculty, staff, students and family members were present in the parking lot near Morton Hall to wish the team good luck as they left Williamsburg. During the send-off, Foubert told the group, “everything about your life has prepared you to complete our mission – and that is to make a difference.”

First stop for the group was Baldwin-Wallace College in Ohio. The tour will conclude in May. Additional information about the group and their complete calendar of tour dates are available online at {{http://www.oneinfourusa.org/rvtour.php}}.

If you’d like to have the One-in-Four RV Tour visit your school or organization please call (757) 221-2191.