With the hope of educating students on the signs of unhealthy and healthy relationships, the One Love Foundation has been introduced to Coastal Carolina University.
Yeardly Love, a senior lacrosse player at University of Virginia, was murdered by her boyfriend in 2010. That year, Love’s mother, sister and brother-in-law founded a nonprofit organization, the One Love Foundation, to honor Love’s memory and raise awareness about abusive relationships.
Over the last 15 years, over 100 school and community campuses throughout the country have started their own Team One Love Club. Now, CCU students are joining the cause.
Senior Gabriela Ledesma and junior Corabella Dieguez, both majoring in sustainability and coastal resilience, are heading the One Love club at CCU. They will hold monthly meetings to discuss One Love’s 10 signs of unhealthy relationships and 10 signs of healthy relationships.
After experiencing an unhealthy relationship during her freshman year, Ledesma felt there wasn’t enough education on the matter and wished she had known the signs earlier. She believes bringing One Love to campus will help spread that information.
“It aims to educate young people on the signs of healthy and unhealthy relationships as a way to prevent young people from getting into unhealthy relationships,” Ledesma said, “and also teach them how to love better and talk about topics that are difficult to discuss.”
Ledesma reached out to Dieguez over the summer to see if she wanted to get involved with bringing One Love to Coastal.
“I’ve had a lot of unfortunate situations when it comes to relationships, so I was super interested,” Dieguez said.
Once a member of her high school’s Team One Love Club, junior psychology major Kiran Turner expressed how important this club has been to her. She attended the same high school, Notre Dame Preparatory (NDP) in Maryland, as Yeardly Love.
“It is very special to us [NDP], because she went there and people knew her. The teachers knew her,” Turner said.
Turner said throughout her four years at NDP, Love’s life was cherished and the issue with unhealthy relationships was consistently a teaching priority. After learning the club is expanding to CCU, she is excited for students to learn and get help.
“In like a college aspect, people are always really open to relationships. I feel like everyone’s trying to explore. And I think you really don’t know the type of person someone is,” Turner said.
As the club kicks off, Dieguez said they will discuss safety during “the redzone,” when cases of sexual assault are at its highest on college campuses, lasting from the beginning of the school year through Thanksgiving break.
