Silent Witness Project unveiling planned Oct. 4

BOWLING GREEN, O.—In observance of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, the unveiling of the 2006 collection of the Silent Witness Project northwest Ohio chapter will be held Wednesday, Oct. 4, the Bowling Green State University Women’s Center has announced. The 6:30 p.m. event will take place at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, 315 S. College Drive, Bowling Green.

The Silent Witness Project was founded in 1991 in Minneapolis, in response to an epidemic of domestic violence murders in the community. Since then, local chapters have been founded in all 50 states. The BGSU Women’s Center founded the northwest Ohio chapter in 2001.

The 2006 collection includes 40 freestanding, life-sized red wooden silhouettes, each one bearing the name and story of a northwest Ohio girl or woman whose life ended violently at the hands of a husband, ex-husband, boyfriend or acquaintance. All of the Silent Witnesses were murdered within the past decade.

During the unveiling, the silhouettes will be revealed one by one in a solemn public ceremony. Each Silent Witness will be represented by a reader who will recount her story.

Last year, more than 350 people attended the unveiling, according to Dr. Mary Krueger, director of the BGSU Women’s Center. Many who attended were family members or friends of the women represented in the collection, who shared their powerfully painful experiences of losing daughters, mothers and sisters to domestic violence. Family members will be present again this year, Krueger said.

Co-sponsors for the unveiling of the 2006 Silent Witness collection include: the Bowling Green branch of the American Association of University Women, Bethany House, BGSU Organization for Women’s Issues, Cocoon Shelter, Destiny House, Family and Child Abuse Prevention Center, Open Arms Domestic Violence and Rape Crisis Services, Shay’s for Life Foundation, Toledo Take Back the Night Collective, the University of Toledo College of Law Domestic Violence Clinic, The VITAL Program and the YWCA Battered Women’s Shelter.

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(Posted October 02, 2006)