NAS Jacksonville Participates in Green Dot Campaign

By Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class (SW/AW) Leah Stiles, Navy Public Affairs Support Element East Detachment Southeast

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (NNS) -- Naval Air Station (NAS) Jacksonville celebrated Sexual Assault Awareness Month by inviting the director of the Violence Intervention and Prevention Center (VIPC) at the University of Kentucky to speak about the "Green Dot Campaign" at the All Saints Chapel in Jacksonville, Fla., April 20.

The "Green Dot Campaign" is an innovative campaign created by Dr. Dorothy Edwards, the director of VIPC, to reduce sexual violence.

Green dots are positive actions that fight negative behavior. The negative behaviors are represented by red dots. Red dot behavior includes sexual assault and interpersonal violence or any behavior that ignores, justifies or perpetuates sexual assault.

"All Sailors have a part to play in violence reduction and must have a sense of possibility that it could actually happen," said Edwards.

The prevention strategy is built on the premise that engaging the bystander can alter the outcome of power-based personal violence. It capitalizes on the power of peer and cultural influence.

"We can't just be bystanders, if you see something that's wrong you have got to intervene, you have got to stop it," said Capt. Jack Scorby Jr., NAS Jacksonville's commanding officer.

According to the VIPC Web site, a Green Dot is built on the premise that in order to measurably reduce the perpetration of power-based personal violence, a cultural shift is necessary. In order to create a cultural shift, a critical mass of people will need to engage in a new behavior or set of behaviors that will make violence less sustainable within any given community.

"One person can make a change, one person can make a difference and therefore by one person making a change we can change society," said Cmdr. Gerald Felder, NAS Jacksonville's command chaplain.

As the VIPC's Web site states, "the power of the Green Dot Campaign is simple: Red dots bad, green dots good, you decide."