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It is up to us to make an impact on sexual assault

In the last two years, the prevention of sexual assault has become ubiquitous.

In part, we can thank the White House. In September 2014, President Obama and Vice President Biden launched the It's On Us initiative, arising from the bold, if not simple, idea that preventing sexual assault on college campuses requires that each type of person personally commit to stop violence.

That initiative mobilized a national movement to end the assault. It's On Us has appeared in the NCAA tournaments and even in the Academy Awards. Hundreds of colleges and universities, countless celebrities and many companies have publicly dedicated themselves to the cause.

The work, however, is more than attractive ads and big names. It is composed largely of university students. These are people who combine the partial exams with the new AAU reports and change the Friday night parties to plan the programming. Throughout the country, there are thousands of these students, Millenials ready to oppose violence.

This is because sexual assault is painfully frequent on college campuses. Attending college means you will meet assault survivors. In this environment, students move forward because it means helping their friends, their family and, sometimes, themselves.

I am one of those students and, nevertheless, I am still, in many ways, a typical 21 year old guy. I served on the executive board of the government of my university and had the honor of being a member of our welcoming court. I attend football matches and I have too many pairs of leggings. I love Leslie Knope and I know the lyrics of an amazing number of Beyonce songs.

More important, however, rape haunts me. I see it everywhere. It appears in my poetry classes and in my political science seminars. It materializes in my favorite movies and books and clings to the hum of the radio. With each new Game of Thrones commercial, I wonder how it is possible that other people are not affected so drastically.

Last year, I was selected to be a member of the It's On Us Student Advisory Committee, comprised of 16 students across the country. Through It's On Us, I've met more than a dozen students who ask the same thing. Preventing assault dominates much of our lives. We recite the Title IX regulations as the 40 best hits. We know about the scandals in other university campuses and we always have statistics ready to work. We know what we're up against.

You may think that assault prevention is overwhelming. This week, as students and citizens across the country come together to avoid the assault as part of It's On Us Week of Action, we're here to help analyze it. We know that work is hard; There are enough statistics to fill a book and enough stories to drown. However, this is all you need:

Too many women and men are hurting themselves on our campuses, and much of our culture still accepts this reality as inevitable. There are incredible defenders on every campus in this country and It's On Us seeks to connect us, and in many ways, this effort is succeeding.

It has given students a national network. It has connected more than 500 schools and hundreds of organizations. It has given us political legitimacy and, in doing so, amplified the voices of millions of people who may have thought that their voices were stolen. As one of the incredible defenders of my campus says, nobody has to do everything. Everyone, however, must do something.

We defend ourselves because we have to do it. We defend ourselves because this problem will not simply disappear. We defend ourselves because if we do not, who will?

We are all about us, for stopping the violence.

This week is It's On Us Week of Action: join the movement by making a promise on ItsOnUs.org. For more information about It's On Us and the excellent work that students are doing on campus, follow us @ ItsOnUs

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post and the National Resource Center for Sexual Violence in conjunction with the Sexual Assault Awareness Month. For more information about the NSVRC and how it can help prevent sexual violence, visit here. Read all the publications of the series here.

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