Anna Duke '17

Department of Defense (DoD) Safe Helpline Shift Manager at RAINN (Rape, Abuse&Incest National Network)

After graduating SMCM with a BA in History and minor in WGSX, I followed the curiosity sparked by my WGSX courses, my internship at KARAMAH: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights (which I was connected to through a WGSX course at St. Mary’s) and my experience as a member of SMART (Sexual Misconduct Advocacy and Resource Team) to work at RAINN, the largest non-profit sexual assault organization in the US. I’ve worked as a staffer, assistant shift manager and now shift manager at RAINN on their DoD Safe Helpline, which is the US military’s sexual assault hotline. We’ve seen upticks during the #MeToo movement, Trump’s election, the Christine Blasey Ford hearings (and Brett Kavanaugh’s subsequent confirmation) and now the greatest surge during the COVID-19 outbreak and people being quarantined with abusers and losing access to in-person services. My work there has really confirmed that the personal is political and it’s impossible to care for individuals without working to dismantle the systems oppressing them.

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