Everyone’s Invited: How shared stories can connect, challenge and heal 

Image © Everyone’s Invited

It all started with a story. In June 2020, as the world was in lockdown, student Soma Sara decided to open up. She began posting on Instagram about her experiences of rape culture at school, sharing how everyday misogyny and sexism formed the bedrock of a culture in which sexual abuse among young people had become normalised. 

Her story would spark a whole new movement, a hopeful counter to the soaring reports¹ in England and Wales of sexual abuse involving young people under 18 (as both victims and perpetrators) – especially on school campuses.  

Soma thought the posts might cause ripples, but nothing prepared her for the tidal wave of responses. Within a week, she had received and shared 300 anonymous stories from young people who had similar experiences. The figure soon climbed into the thousands. 

Like the #MeToo movement before it – when a 2017 tweet by actress Alyssa Milano triggered a wave of disclosures and a moment of reckoning for Hollywood – Soma’s courage and openness had hit upon a moment in time when young people were hungry for change.  

“Everyone was chained to their phones during lockdown. People had the courage to speak out about social issues, many for the first time ever,” Soma explains in an interview with Last Bus Magazine². “Social media was dominated by activism, a thirst for learning, education, and a powerful desire for big, meaningful, and sustainable change.” 

Soma’s experience was symptomatic of a wider phenomenon, where sexual harassment and abuse among young people has been heavily underreported. As a result, the scale of the issue is not fully understood by the adults who could make a difference. A 2017 report³ by the National Education Union and UK Feminista, for example, found that 27 per cent of secondary teachers would not feel confident tackling a sexist incident if they experienced or witnessed it in school. 

Soma resolved to create a safe space to host survivors’ stories – and a movement calling for change. The Everyone’s Invited website was born. 

“I wanted to create a restorative environment where survivors can access the help and support they need,” she tells Last Bus Magazine. “I also wanted to do everything in my power to continue this essential conversation by giving these stories a more permanent platform.” 

By 2021, fuelled by high-profile media coverage, the momentum of Everyone’s Invited’s work was snowballing. The Department for Education responded by commissioning the UK’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children to launch a new helpline to allow young people to report if they have experienced abuse in education⁴. It also asked Ofsted (the government department responsible for school standards in England) to carry out a rapid review of sexual abuse in schools and colleges⁵. 

Everyone’s Invited’s efforts then led to a landmark 2023 report by the UK parliament’s Women and Equalities Committee, titled Attitudes towards women and girls in educational settings⁶. The report acknowledged Everyone’s Invited’s role in gathering thousands of testimonials through its website, and also highlighted schoolteachers’ growing concerns about the link between social media and its sometimes toxic influence over boys and young men. 

As Everyone’s Invited’s influence has grown, it has expanded from a gathering place for stories to a powerful source of healing and positive action. Its website signposts all survivors who have shared their stories to the Help page, which offers survivor resources, guides, charities, helplines, and organisations that provide support, help, and healing content. 

Everyone’s Invited is also bringing a much-needed youth perspective to promoting healthy relationships between adolescents and preventing peer-to-peer sexual abuse. It works with universities, NHS practitioners, social workers, and police forces to share advice and deliver practical training. 

 Some of its most impactful work has been within the classroom, where Everyone’s Invited brings pop culture, the role of social media and the impact of online pornography to the forefront of conversations with young people  Between 2022 and 2024, Everyone’s Invited reached 40,000 students and 7,320 staff members with this vital, culture-shifting work. 

In tailored monthly sessions for state schools, Everyone’s Invited raises difficult topics by talking about relevant cultural moments. At a school in Scotland, teachers reported a “noticeable shift towards a more informed and proactive stance” following the Everyone’s Invited education programme. “More pupils will call behaviours out,” they say. “The school curriculum now includes dedicated sessions on consent, respect and health relationships, using more current examples.”⁷ 

Oak supports Everyone’s Invited as part of our Prevent Child Sex Abuse Programme, which supports a safer world where children can thrive. Child sexual abuse is preventable. This fact drives our commitment to end child sexual abuse online and offline. Our partners are survivors, change makers, and researchers working to accelerate action at the community, national, and global levels.