Tupelo Police Team Up With Students For ‘Project Wonder Woman’

TUPELO, Miss. (WCBI) – A partnership involving the Tupelo Police Department, and three undergraduate students at Ole Miss aims to educate and empower women to prevent sexual assault.

For their senior  project, three Ole Miss social work students had a clear task, choose a topic and organize a community event.

“We chose sexual assault prevention and education,” said Alana Busby.

All three are passionate about educating women of all ages on how to avoid becoming victims.

“Not only do we want to educate women on how to escape attacks, but we also want to educate them on things they can look for , warning signs of an offender or, to just be more aware of their surroundings,” Busby said.

That’s where the experts come in.

Eric Grissom is a patrolman with the Tupelo Police Department.  He also teaches a self defense course for women, and this Saturday, he will share some of that knowledge and technique at the free workshop.  It’s called “Project Wonder Woman.”

“The ladies and I brainstormed, where we came up with it, Wonder Woman’s bracelets.  You look at the history, Wonder Woman and her ancestors wore those bracelets in remembrance of something bad that happened and turned it into a positive,” SSGT Grissom said.

That’s another purpose of “Project Wonder Woman”  The three classmates, along with Officer Grissom want to teach women that  prevention starts with education and the importance of reporting any assault.

“That’s where we want our education to spread to, to speak up about about it, not keeping it to yourself, because of the shame that comes along with it,” said Misty McCaffrey.

Project Wonder Woman starts at 8 Saturday morning, at the Tupelo Police Department, 400 N Front Street.

Officer Grissom plans to offer similar self defense classes for women in the future.