Café Q doesn’t look like an ideal place to do your laundry, but on April 5, members of Women Activists Vocalizing Equality (WAVE) hung their clothes out to dry.

Messages written on the back of the T-shirts represent the personal messages of victims of domestic violence.

“The point is to get people to stop for a second and to read the stories of others,” said Meghan Roche, senior and co-president of WAVE.

The project was brought to Quinnipiac three years ago.  By researching other projects different campuses have done, WAVE found this project and decided to bring it to QU.  WAVE had victims of domestic violence or others who knew victims of assault write their messages on the backs of T-shirts.

“It acts as an outlet for all of the pain that the victims and survivors have kept inside,” Roche said.

The victims were able to express how violence has affected their lives and share how their lives have changed because of it.

WAVE adds a few more T-shirts every year.

“I like to look at people’s faces and to see how they react to the T-shirts; that is when I feel like WAVE has made a difference,” Roche said.

WAVE will keep the shirts up until April 13, when the group will host Take Back the Night, an event where people speak out against sexual assault and violence.

“In this busy world, it is easy to forget what happens when no one is looking and to realize that just because someone is putting on a smile everyday doesn’t mean they aren’t hurting inside from being abused,” Roche said.

Photo credit: Joe Pelletier