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In an effort to make safe sex practices more widespread across campus, Sexual Health Awareness and Relationship Communication Educators are piloting a “SHARC Kit” program through which College students can receive supplies like condoms anonymously.
The program — which is currently underway in Currier and Leverett Houses — allows students to fill out a Google form and request to receive a kit through the College mailing system, according to SHARC Co-Director Brandi Moore ’19. The group eventually plans to expand the program.
“It allows students who don't feel comfortable necessarily going in a dining hall to pick up safer sex supplies — or going into one of the offices on campus to get that — to kind of just have a really discrete way to have safer sex supplies with a fair amount of ease,” Moore said. “So that's something awesome and we hope to roll it out to other houses because it's been very, very popular, which is really exciting.”
SHARC will also continue to provide safe sex supplies for students during their office hours in dining halls on campus. Currently, students can see SHARC counselors from 9-10:30 p.m. in Currier Dining Hall on Sundays, Kirkland House Dining Hall on Mondays, Leverett House Dining Hall on Tuesdays, and Quincy House Dining Hall on Thursdays.
Before becoming a peer educator group in 2017, SHARC was a peer-counseling organization. The organization changed its status following the results of a sexual health survey released in 2016. The group shifted its focus to “actually engage in more active outreach” and have the ability to set up events with students, according to Moore.
Moore said the group wants students to know that SHARC does more than hand out safe sex supplies, though. She said that while the organization is currently viewed as the “condom group” on campus, organization members want to change that perception.
“We also want them to know that we also focus on relationships, and kind of relationship education, how to properly communicate your needs, wants, and non-negotiables, things like that,” Moore said.
Since 2014, SHARC has offered its workshop “Sexual Health 101” to student groups across campus. The workshop focuses on using different types of sex supplies, getting sexually transmitted infections testing on campus, and asking for consent, according to Moore.
“This is basically a workshop that covers the basics of sexual education, because we recognize, especially at Harvard where a lot of people are coming either internationally or out of state, we don't have the same sex ed backgrounds,” Brandi said. “There are some people who had abstinence-only education if they had any at all, and there are other people who probably got a really comprehensive sexual education prior to coming to college.”
—Staff writer Michelle Kurilla can be reached at michelle.kurilla@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @MichelleKurilla.
—Staff writer Tamar Sarig can be reached at tamar.sarig@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @tamar_sarig.
