The Women’s Learning Partnership recently held the Youth Tech Festival in Jordan. The Festival was a fun way to bring together social conscious youth and help them develop communication, technology and leader ship skills. Click here to check out a photo blog of the event.

Have you ever designed a shirt?  Do you like free prizes?  Have I got your attention yet?  BOM411.com has just launched its Design Not Drama campaign.  The campaign is a T-shirt contest that helps get the word out about domestic violence.  What a cool way to tell people about dating abuse!  The purpose of the campaign is to emphasize that “relationships come in all shapes and sizes… and they will involve some sort of drama.  How you decide to deal with that drama is up to you.”  

The contest is open to all California residents ages 15-19, and all entries are due December 5^, at 11:30 p.m. (for all you procrastinators, I recommend starting on your design before 11:29).  If you are not a resident of California, you should check out the T-shirt design anyway. 

CAUTION: The T-shirt design is highly addictive.  You may lose track of time while making your T-shirt, so make sure to have a clock nearby (in case you have to go to school, or in my case, get back to work).  

The winner of the contest receives a $1000 Apple gift card, 20 prints of his/her winning design, and a posting on the BOM411 website!  In other words, you could get a lot of cool stuff for expressing yourself.  We always have posted ways and tips for you to express your creativity to tell people about dating abuse, and we are ecstatic to hear that BOM411 knows that you guys are as creative as we have been saying!  (Also, free stuff never hurts.)  Below is a link to the contest.  Good luck to all participants… design your hearts out. 

Contest Link: http://www.designnotdrama.com/

And don’t forget, you can always find us on Myspace and Facebook too.

  I broke up with my boyfriend and now he’s posting pictures of me naked on MySpace. He says he won’t stop until I get back together with him. What should I do?

When you break up with someone that has been abusive, they will often try to get you back by threatening or harassing you, or even by trying to humiliate and blackmail you.  Trying to reason with someone who is doing things like this doesn’t usually work, and obviously getting back together with someone that has abused you would only make the situation better for the moment.

Setting your profile to private or deleting it might be one option. But while that may stop your ex from contacting you directly, it won’t stop him from writing or posting photos on his profile- or harassing your friends.

MySpace has rules concerning what users can post and use their profiles for. Harassment, threats of physical harm and sexual exploitation (that would include posting photographs of you naked) are against the rules.

Here are some things you might try:

If there’s a possibility your ex may know the password to your profile, change it now. Make sure you new password is something they won’t easily guess.

Keep copies of any harassing messages, comments, or photos he sends to you or post on your profile or their own. Don’t respond to the messages. There’s no point. 

Delete any comments or photos your ex has left on your profile. Ask your friends to remove any postings your ex leaves on their profiles about you.

Click the Report Abuse link at the bottom of his MySpace profile. They will not know you have reported their profile.  If your ex is harassing any of your friends, ask them to do the same.

Block your ex from viewing your profile and remove them from your friend list. Ask your friends to do the same.

If you have more questions or need more help, one of our peer advocates would be happy to talk to you. You can contact us by phone at 1-866-331-9474 (1-866 331-8453 TTY) or by chat at www.loveisrespect.org.

*Several callers and chatters have contacted loveisrespect, National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline specifically asking about what to do when they’re being harassed by an ex on MySpace.  This is an example of a question we’ve received. All calls and chats are anonymous and confidential.