Clark Williams is taking the issue of domestic violence into his own hands – more specifically, his own wrists.

Williams, a former basketball player for the University, has co-founded the “Band Together” project – an effort to encourage students to wear purple wristbands throughout the month of October to help start a conversation about domestic violence in their community.

October is national domestic violence awareness month.

“Our main objective is to create more awareness; we’re trying to create a movement,” Williams said in a phone interview Monday. “If we can get an entire movement of people, it will start to engage more conversations about the seriousness of the issue.”

Students will be able to purchase the wristbands for $3 through the project’s Web site at www.band2g.com.

Williams and the other co-founder, Max Hines, said they were inspired to begin the project after witnessing first hand the effects domestic violence had on their own mothers.

“We’re trying to step outside of the box on this issue that’s been near and dear to our hearts,” Hines said in a phone interview Monday. “We all know the youth movement is big in terms of changing things in social issues.”

The money raised through the project will go toward helping the Atlanta-based Women’s Center To End Domestic Violence.

The center provides resources for women and children experiencing domestic violence. It maintains a safe house with 32 beds and mans a 24-hour hot line that receives about 13,000 calls each year.

In addition to providing these services, the center also tries to educate the public about the issues.

“It’s important for people to know about domestic violence and to hold their peers accountable,” said Amber Harris, director of development for the center. “We can hold our peers accountable for using violence in their relationships.”

For Harris, it’s also important for the public to realize that domestic violence can affect anyone.

“What we know is that domestic violence crosses all societal lines,” Harris said in a phone interview Monday.

Larry Gourdine, head of the Office for Violence Prevention, said he often speaks to students who simply don’t think it could happen to them, and he echoed Harris’s sentiment.

“This is an issue that affects both men and women,” he said. “It knows no age, race, gender or sexual orientation.”

It also affects victims on many levels – physically, psychologically and emotionally.

Sometimes the less visible components of relationship violence are the things that need to be talked about the most, Gourdine said. These could include name-calling, manipulative behavior and isolation from friends.

“Usually when you hear these types of issues – the intimate partner violence – you think of physical violence,” he said. “The emotional and psychological abuse also needs to be talked about on that same level.”

Often victims don’t identify the problems they are experiencing as relationship abuse, he said. They are unaware of what actions constitute relationship violence.

“So it’s very important that the campus community be aware of and raise their awareness of these issues,” Gourdine said.

He defined relationship violence as “any physical, emotional or psychological abusive behaviors used by an individual to maintain power and control over an intimate partner.”

On campus, Gourdine acts as both an educational resource for students who want to learn more about relationship issues, and as a victim response advocate for students who have been affected by interpersonal violence.

“Students can always come to the Office for Violence Prevention to get the help and support that they need,” he said.