Why are you doing this?

Friends or frienamies, hooking up or getting down, you have the right to be treated with respect and the responsibility to be a respectful partner. What what exactly does a healthy relationship look like? how do you give and get respect? And what's up with all of the drama? Yeah, we weren't sure either. So in the Fall of 2010 we hit the streets of Providence to talk to you about everything from relationships to rumors to drama and dating. After a few months of filming, two things were clear: 

1. Young people in Rhode Island are wicked smart. Seriously, we were impressed. Most of the people we talked to knew the difference between a healthy and abusive relationship and they had great advice for how to give and get respect. If you don't believe us, check out hkup/TV. 
2. There need to be more ways in the world to help all of these young people use what they know about healthy relationships to help people who might be trying out figure out what's cool and what's not in relationships.  

So, hkupwithrespect creates video projects and digital apps to help teens talk about what's cool and what's not in relationships. We believe that the more people think and talk about the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationships, the better they can be at protecting themselves and their friends from digital and dating abuse.

 Also, this is a pretty sweet excuse to hang out at KP on sunny days, talk to cool people and spend the rest of the day eating SPKs and editing videos. 

Who are you?

The more important question is, "Who are YOU?"...because at the end of the day, the one who makes hkupwithrespect is YOU. When you tell your relationship story at hkupwithrespect or when you give feedback to someone else, you make hkupwithrespect. When you tell hkupTV whats on your mind, you make hkupwithrespect. When you create and lead events in your community to help your friends talk about healthy relationships, you make hkupwithrespect. hkupwithrespect is made by thousands of young people from all over the country who want to talk about healthy relationships and how we can all support each other to live life free from violence and abuse.

If you're talking about the geniuses who created and designed this fantastic site, look no further than the one, the only Start Strong Rhode Island. Start Strong Rhode Island is a project of Sojourner House and Young Voices with the mission to promote healthy relationships among 11-14 year olds in Rhode Island. hkupwithrespect is one of the ways that Start Strong Rhode Island helps high school aged kids set a healthy example for the young teens in their lives. 

Start Strong Rhode Island is part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's national Start Strong initiative. Start Strong is the largest initiative ever funded to target 11-14 year olds and rally entire communities to promote healthy relationships as the way to prevent teen dating violence and abuse. Go to www.startstrongteens.org to see how Start Strong is bringing together a wide variety of partners for the first time to tackle this issue and mobilize teens to lead and shape this national public health effort.