We at the Center for Campus Wellness are excited to announce that this February, we celebrate Harm Reduction Month on campus.

For this year’s Harm Reduction Month celebration, our theme is “Harm Reduction is Love.” Starting on Feb. 1, we encourage our campus community to explore and learn more about harm reduction and the love it brings to our campus and our community.

You might be asking yourself, what is harm reduction? What does it look like on campus? And how does it relate to me?

Harm reduction is a community-based and public health practice. It is any behavior modification that keeps us and those around us a little bit safer. We use harm reduction every day without knowing it. For example, we use seatbelts in a car to keep us and those around us safer. We wear sunscreen while going outside to protect our skin. Harm reduction is regularly getting tested for STIs. Using harm reduction, we can keep ourselves and our community safer.

Harm reduction is also used when it comes to substance use. We can show up for each other by carrying naloxone, using fentanyl testing strips or driving a friend home from a party instead of driving with alcohol in their system. Harm reduction is compassionate, non-judgmental and effective. Harm reduction is showing love to ourselves and others.

Throughout the month, the Center for Campus Wellness will be hosting multiple events (Such as yoga, harm reduction supplies distribution, building safe use kits for the community and many more) all centered around harm reduction and applying it to the community. We hope to emphasize the importance of challenging harmful stereotypes and stigmas around substance use. We hope to spread helpful harm-reduction tools and encourage our campus community to get involved in taking care of each other.

We are so excited about all the upcoming events this month and hope you will join us in taking care of our community. To learn more about our upcoming events, harm reduction and our center, follow us on our Instagram account @uofuwellness.

We look forward to working with you!