LAKELAND – “Consent is as easy as FRIES,” according to communications specialist with the Dragonfly Centre, Amber Cook.
Cook was quoting information laid out on placards that will be placed on the tables of participating restaurants in Athabasca, Bonnyville, Cold Lake, Lac La Biche, Slave Lake and Wabasca-Desmarais throughout the month of May.
Across Canada, May is recognized as Sexual Violence Awareness Month.
The purpose of the FRIES campaign is to increase public awareness of what consent is with every side of fries served up.
FRIES stands for freely given, revocable, informed, enthusiastic and specific.
When consent is freely given, it means that no parties involved felt pressured, threatened, manipulated or guilted into doing something.
“There needs to be true genuine choice for both parties,” states information provided by the Dragonfly Centre.
Consent can be taken back at any time. “It doesn’t matter if they promised their consent, already gave their consent, or have given consent multiple times before – everyone has the right to change their minds,” explained Cook.
While 96 per cent of Canadians believe that consent is required, only 28 per cent of people understand how to give or get consent, according to 2018 data from the Canadian Women’s Foundation.
“The FRIES campaign is our way of trying to increase the understanding of what consent means,” said Cook. “Consent really is as easy as FRIES.”
Restaurants that care
When Jessie Heisler, the education programmer for the Dragonfly Centre, came up with the idea for the FRIES campaign there was concern it would be a challenge to get buy-in from restaurants that had been hit hard by the pandemic and are still recovering.
To the surprise of Dragonfly staff, almost every business they approached was eager to help with the campaign.
There are 23 locations taking part in the FRIES campaign across the Dragonfly Centre’s service area, which spans north central and northeast Alberta.
“I think they saw the need that we do need to raise more awareness around consent because understanding consent is a big part of preventing sexual violence from happening in the first place,” Cook explained.
In addition, many restaurants will be donating a portion of sales from fries to the Dragonfly Centre to support survivors of sexual violence.
Beyond the table placards and posters, patrons ordering fries at participating restaurants will receive a FRIES consent sticker that has a QR code that will direct them to a quick family-friendly quiz on consent.
“So, while patrons are waiting for their food, they can take a quiz to test their knowledge of consent,” she said, adding that the quiz was designed to apply to a broader context that relates to healthy relationships and boundaries overall.
Breaking the silence
While the FRIES campaign is just one small part of the Dragonfly Centre’s advocacy during May, the non-profit takes part in numerous activities to break the silence around sexual violence and to increase the non-profit's visibility in the community.
Having a better understanding of consent will hopefully clear up a person's concerns when experiencing or reflecting on a situation that didn’t ‘feel’ right or made them uncomfortable.
Resources and additional information are available at www.thedragonflycentre.com, which includes a confidential chatline monitored from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., seven days a week.
“We don't ask for a lot of identifying information, but it can be a place where if something didn't feel right or you weren't sure about it, but you want to make sure about it, you can go on and chat,” noted Cook.
"Just having these conversations and breaking the silence around sexual violence helps to end the stigma. And this is just one more way to open up those conversations and get people talking about it.”
In 2022, the Dragonfly Centre served 2,184 clients. Of those, 75 per cent were female, 18 per cent were male, and two per cent identified as non-binary. Minors made up 61 per cent of clients supported by the centre, and 38 per cent of Dragonfly clients identified as First Nation, Métis or Inuit.
The Dragonfly Centre is one of the 15 sexual assault centres in Alberta and has the largest service area serving a population of over 109,000 people. The non-profit serves one city, nine towns, over 40 villages and hamlets, four Métis settlements and 10 First Nations.
The Dragonfly Centre offers free and confidential sexual assault services for people of all ages. This includes counselling, police and court support, system navigation, education, outreach and crisis support.