The clicks of high heels were heard around the Hawk Hill campus March 27, as Prevention, Advocacy, Trust and Healing hosted its first “Walk A Mile in Her Shoes” event. 

P.A.T.H., formerly known as the Rape Education Prevention Program, is a student-led organization centered on advocacy for survivors of sexual and domestic violence.

The event, which is a version of the nationwide “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes,” invited participants to walk one mile around campus and encouraged them to wear high heels, symbolizing solidarity with sexual violence survivors. Participants wear high heels to challenge gender expectations and stereotypes, according to the “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes” website. 

Mayva Pierre Louis ’26, president of P.A.T.H., said her goal in hosting this event was to spark conversation and educate others, noting “being better is being educated.” 

“This event helps educate other people and bring awareness to things that they don’t want to talk about and that they should because it affects all of us,” Pierre Louis said.

The event began on the Chapel Lawn with music, T-shirt sales and tables full of high heels for participants to wear. The group walked to and around Merion Hall and returned to the lawn through the underpass. 

McKenna Graham ’27, marketing chair for P.A.T.H., said she hopes the event will get students to “start talking about the larger impacts of violence.”

“It’s to start conversations about what high heels represent for women, societal pressures, things of that nature, but also gendered violence,” Graham said. “While men are victims, too, a significant amount of perpetrators are men, and so there is an imbalance of the gender there.”

Pierre Louis echoed this sentiment, pointing to the broader implications of the event.

“Making everybody wear heels to walk with us, I feel like it breaks boundaries,” Pierre Louis said. “It opens up the idea that anybody can wear heels, anybody could be a victim of sexual violence, anything can happen to anyone at any time and that there is no specific look to whatever category that people want to fit you in.”

Oreoluwa Akinbo ’28, a member of P.A.T.H., said the walk was important because events like these aren’t frequently held on campus. 

“You’re walking in solidarity with survivors of sexual assault and victims of domestic violence,” Akinbo said. “It’s very good to spread awareness about that, especially on campus.”

After the walk, Pierre Louis and other members of the P.A.T.H. executive board encouraged participants to sign a poster to commemorate the event.

The event, Pierre Louis said, embodied everything P.A.T.H. stands for, such as advocating for victims and bringing a new light to topics that should not be uncomfortable to talk about. 

“If I can play a part in bringing new information, bringing new awareness, bringing light to things that people would like to keep in the dark, I am doing my part as a student, and as a woman and also as a Hawk,” Pierre Louis said.