DOUGLAS COUNTY, Colo. — Four high schoolers in Colorado are building a startup to change how society "understands, prevents, and responds to sexual assault," called The CLEAR Initiative.
In Douglas County, the Venture Academy of Leadership and Entrepreneurship (VALE) prides itself on fostering the future success of its students. Above all, staff want every graduate to understand how they can make their own impact on the world while being a good person.
One of the classes for juniors is called Incubator, where students are taught how to be entrepreneurs through experience, creating their own startup in the process.
Liam Chismarich, Jamal Spriggs, Amara Fantl, and Kat Kimble make up one of the groups in the class. Instead of working on a more typical business model, the group decided they wanted to tackle the way society understands and responds to sexual assault.
"We came together as friends first, and then it was like, 'Okay, well now we have to create this business together for class. What do we care about? Like, what do we all deeply care about?'" Kimble said. "What we found is rape kits are a huge issue."
There is a historic backlog of DNA rape kits in Colorado. According to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI), 1,424 sexual assault cases are waiting on the results of DNA tests. The estimated turnaround time is 558 days.
The backlog was exacerbated by an investigation into a former DNA scientist, Yvonne "Missy" Woods, who is accused of mishandling evidence.
"This issue comes down to the way that sexual assault is treated by society as a whole. So, let's address the bigger issue and create ways that we can get down to the smaller issues and fix those smaller issues," Kimble said.
That's when the group decided to work on The CLEAR Initiative, which stands for the Coalition for Legal Evidence Advocacy and Reform.
"When we talk about sexual assault, we think about youth but we don't hear from youth," said Kimble.
Three core concepts comprise The CLEAR Initiative: Speak Up, Speak Out, and Make it CLEAR.
Speak Up is a social media and awareness campaign where the group hopes to show how sexual assault affects survivors and force people to pay attention.
Speak Out will create a legislative network that would guide people with varying perspectives through the Colorado State Capitol, keeping them informed of bills related to sexual assault that could use their input through committee testimony.
"I think people are scared to talk sometimes because they're like, 'Well, who am I to say?'" said Fantl. "We believe if you're a member of this community, you should have a voice in this community, right?"
The third goal is to Make it CLEAR, which would be an educational effort within places like schools and businesses.
"We would be going to each of these different places and very much so helping them, particularly with very hands-on training and materials, to actually be able to tackle these situations," said Chismarich. "Creating standardized resources for people who might be working with people who have experienced sexual assault and sort of applying these basic psychological principles and the most recent data and evidence of trauma-informed care."
The group believes their voices — and age — are their strength.
"We're young and we don't have degrees and we have limited life experience, but I think that people, especially politicians, want to hear from young people right now," Kimble said.
Part of the vision is to create a youth coalition that carries on this work after the group has graduated.
"We're going to be gone after senior year, and this is kind of Colorado-based, and I think many of us will be moving out of Colorado for college, and so we want to make sure this doesn't die with us," said Fantl. "The work that needs to be done for sexual assault will never end, and we want to make sure that this stays as a legacy."
Spriggs summed up what makes this topic so important to the group as a whole.
"I feel like it's the responsibility in everyone to care about their neighbor and love their neighbor, right?" Spriggs said.
The goal is to launch the startup in roughly eight weeks, with plans to publish the website by May 1.
The teens said they are grateful for any assistance they receive that helps their work come to life. They have started a GoFundMe to support their efforts, with a goal of $5,500.
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