Nashville, Tennessee (TN Tribune) – A powerful new mural featuring two young superheroes that urges young people to “Be The Friend” who helps end dating violence was unveiled this morning on Charlotte Avenue in Nashville’s Richland Park neighborhood.
The Tennessee Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence (Coalition) partnered with the Global Education Center, to place the mural at the corner of Charlotte and 49th street in Richland Park to support the Coalition’s ongoing Be The Friend Campaign to end dating violence in Tennessee. Click her for images from today unveiling celebration: Images – June 30 Be-The-Friend-Mural Unveiling
The Be The Friend campaign features short video and still image ads running on Snapchat, Instagram, Tok-tok, Spotify and YouTube that reinforce bystander intervention strategies to prevent dating violence. Launched in September 2020, the social media ads have exceeded 15-million impressions and more than 1.8 million video views on the various social channels.
“We embraced social media to reach a younger audience and it’s been incredibly successful,” said Kathy Walsh, Executive Director of The Coalition. “We’ve reached millions of young Tennesseans via social media. Now as people take selfies in front of our mural and post to their social pages, we’ll continue to spread our message far and wide that through awareness, empowerment and education, together we can end dating violence in Tennessee.”
“We are excited to support the Coalition’s Be the Friend Campaign to raise awareness and advocate for solutions to dating and sexual violence among young people in Tennessee, said Ellen Gilbert, Director, Global Education Center. “With this mural on our building, our community is taking a stand.
We’re saying loud and clear that there is no place for dating violence in our community,” Gilbert concluded.
Dating violence is a significant problem in Tennessee and across the country. According to the CDC’s National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS), 1 in 4 women and 1 in 9 men experienced sexual violence, physical violence and/or stalking by an intimate partner at some point in their lifetime.
