The best way to counter disbelief is to offer results of a survey or stories collected from the community. You can collect these stories (with written consent) through focus groups, or you can invite anonymous stories, or ask people to map safe and unsafe spaces in your school or community. The idea is to gather and organize information to share with people, especially with those who have the power to make things better. SVP work is made more powerful with the stories of people affected by SV, and research methods allow you to gather many voices!
The Fed Up Honeys, a group of young women of color working with Caitlin Cahill at the City University of New York, researched how lack of child-abuse awareness and domestic violence education contributes to racial stereotypes in their communities. They conducted interviews and collected questionnaires from other young women in their neighborhoods and used their findings to spread positive information and challenge people to think about the impact of stereotypes.
They published their report Makes Me Mad, which touches on sexual violence.
In addition to their report, the group handed out stereotype stickers in their communities to encourage people to think about the unfounded assumptions they have about teen girls of color.
The Fed-Up Honeys worked with an adult researcher. Because sexual violence is such a serious problem, often with lasting, harmful effects on victims and their families, friends, and communities, we recommend you work with an adult or with organizations doing SVP work in your community. They are likely to know what research needs to be done and what issues are important to the people they work with, and they can help you think through the best ways to gather and report research.
Always get the written consent of people you are gathering information from and make sure they know how you will report the results. Use pseudonyms or report general themes to ensure the people you gathered data from remain anonymous and protected from further harassment or violence.