Lex 18
September 8th, 2015
Excerpt below:
One Pulaski County elementary school is using nail polish to raise awareness about a problem affecting many children their age, domestic violence.
Eubank Elementary is taking part in the national “Put The Nail In It” campaign, where students paint one of their nails purple to help them remember that they can speak up when they see domestic violence.
“To get them interested enough that they can remember, ‘I remember talking about that,’” said Eubank’s Guidance Counselor, Lula Burton on why the students are painting their nails.
“There are 20 people every minute being domestically abused,” said Burton. “One in every fifteen children. In a class of 30, you’ve got 2.”
The purple nails are a symbol of stopping domestic violence and not being afraid to speak up when they see it.
“I don’t want them to grow up and think, ‘that’s how I was treated at home, or that’s how my parents were treated. This is how I’m going to treat my spouse someday,’” said Burton. “It helps the children if they’ll come and talk to me, then we can reach out to their family and try to help the person who is being abused.”
The nail polish is to remember that domestic violence is never OK.
“I think that nobody should get hurt because of domestic violence. I think everybody should be nice to each other,” said Holly New, a fifth grader at Eubank Elementary.
The #PutTheNailinIt campaign was started by Safe Horizon, which is one of the largest providers of domestic violence victim support in the county.
Read the original article here.
