I am a junior at Gettysburg College in PA. I don't know if you have been watching the news lately, but there has been a murder on our college campus last Thursday. One student (a male senior) strangled and murdered his (ex-)girlfriend of one year (a sophomore). It really shook our campus hard, along with myself, even though i did not know either one that was involved. After breaking down a little tonight, i realized, crying was not going to change the past; nor prevent incidents, assaults, nor murders like this from happening again in the future.
What will? Taking action!
I found your contact information after googling 'self defense for women classes' and wanted to get in contact with you right away. I was hoping you could hold self defense classes for female students, or any woman (faculty, staff or students) on our campus to help protect us if we were to ever get ourselves in this type of situation. It is very scary to know that an innocent 19 year old young woman was strangled, stabbed and murdered by someone that loved her for a year. Not even a stranger, or a crazy drug addict rapist on the street! Her boyfriend! Someone she trusted and loved! How scary is that? She was not able to get away, she was not able to defend herself. She died because of that.
But you... you have the power to give us woman that power. You have the ability to give us woman the ability to defend ourselves. To win. To live. And to help with our recovery of her death on our campus. I believe that immediately holding these self defense classes on our campus will prove that Emily Rachel Silverstein did not die in vain.
Please help me, help us. Give us the power, the ability to defend ourselves and live.
