Staff Writer Guy de Basto explores non-profit organisation Enough through reflecting back on his volunteer experience with them.
If you’ve been on campus at all in the last couple of months, you’ll have noticed a couple of King’s students in overly fluorescent orange T-shirts standing beside a kiddies paddling pool in the middle of the Strand campus. At first, I thought it looked bizarre. A few weeks later, I found myself wearing one of those same orange shirts, standing in the sweltering heat and trying to explain to passing students why we were there in the first place.
Why I Signed Up
I have always enjoyed giving back to others when I can. When enough popped up on my feed, I recognised the amazing cause it was and, after contacting the founder, offered to volunteer. I’m glad I did.
Volunteering for enough mostly involved standing on campus in the sweltering heat beside a paddling pool while trying to persuade busy students to stop for thirty seconds. On the surface, it was slightly absurd. But it quickly became clear that the conversations mattered more than the setup.
What Students Didn’t Know
Many students I spoke to had little idea what a SARC (Sexual Assault Referral Centre) actually was, what reporting procedures looked like, or what support options existed following sexual assault. In my experience, public understanding of the process is often remarkably limited, and the King’s student body looks to be equally uninformed. In fact, most students I spoke to simply did not know what would actually happen if somebody reported a rape.
Those conversations made me realise just how significant the information gap surrounding sexual violence remains. It also helped me understand why enough exists in the first place.
Enough and their Mission
The campaign was for Enough, a non-profit organisation attempting something unusually ambitious: preventing rape not only through awareness campaigns, but through deterrence. Created in response to survivor requests, Enough provides self-testing DNA kits, encrypted storage for testimony, and access to educational resources and specialist clinicians. It’s needed now more than ever, with a total of 71,667 rapes reported to the police in England and Wales from 1 April 2024 to 31st March 2025. However, with less than 3% of all rapes resulting in a charge that same year, based on 2024 data, it remains a very serious problem in society today.
The organisation’s premise is deceptively simple. If survivors are given greater control over evidence and reporting, perpetrators may begin to perceive sexual violence as carrying a greater risk of consequence. That is the central idea behind enough.
The DNA Kit at the centre of it all…
The storage of DNA evidence itself makes this kit unique. In cases of sexual violence, evidence is often lost simply because survivors do not immediately report what happened to the police or attend a Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC). That hesitation is completely understandable. It is plausible to see how reporting can feel emotionally exhausting, invasive, and highly uncertain, especially in the immediate aftermath of potentially life-changing trauma.
Enough tries to tackle this problem by allowing survivors to self-test and securely preserve potential evidence. According to a legal opinion commissioned by the charity in March 2025, DNA evidence collected through the kits in a perfect manner could potentially be considered admissible in court where the fact of sexual contact itself is disputed. Even outside formal prosecution, however, the existence of stored DNA changes the broader psychology surrounding accountability. Evidence that would otherwise disappear is retained. Information that may have been lost entirely instead continues to exist.
Can Deterrence Work?
That links directly to the second, and perhaps most unique, aspect of the initiative: the aforementioned deterrence.
Enough describes itself as “the kit that makes rapists think twice”. At first glance, that catchy slogan sounds almost too ambitious. There’s no denying that sexual violence is a highly complex social issue which requires all of us to address. Yet dismissing the idea entirely would also ignore how preventative campaigns already operate elsewhere. The charity frequently compares its approach to public health campaigns surrounding drink-driving and breathalysers. The argument is not that every potential perpetrator suddenly becomes morally transformed. Rather, the visible presence of DNA kits in student homes, university campuses, and conversations may increase the perceived likelihood of identification or reporting.
The Positive Effects of Enough
Indeed, the early data from university campaigns is striking. In Bristol, Enough reports that around 90% of students were aware of the initiative, while 70% believed it was making a positive difference. The charity’s long-term ambition is to distribute kits to roughly 30% of the student population, Enough, in theory, to create a visible cultural presence. Put simply, the kits are designed not simply to exist, but to be seen.
Of course, critics might reasonably question whether deterrence can ever be measured properly in cases like these. After all, proving that a crime did not happen because of a campaign is inherently difficult. But perhaps that criticism misses the broader point. Even if the kits only partially succeed as deterrents, they still perform another crucial function: they generate conversation.
Controversy with Enough
However, Enough has faced scrutiny over some of its promotional material. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled against the organisation after finding that several of its adverts made unsubstantiated claims, both about the likelihood of DNA evidence being accepted in court and about the scale of rape in the UK. Former Prison and Probation Services chief Sir Martin Narey, who filed the complaint, expressed concern that the messaging was unnecessarily alarming for young women and their families. In a statement, Enough said it respected the ASA’s ruling and has since updated its wording.
More than Just Evidence
Enough is highly effective in minimising that informational discrepancy. The organisation provides resources explaining reporting pathways, forensic examinations, and survivor support in accessible language on, I must say, a very navigable website.
More importantly, the campaign creates visibility around an issue that universities often struggle to discuss openly. Sexual violence on campus frequently exists in a strange paradox: simultaneously well-known and rarely spoken about directly. The presence of volunteers in bright orange shirts standing in public spaces forces the topic into ordinary conversation. King’s students stop, debate the idea, disagree with aspects of it, or simply become aware that support systems exist. In that sense, one could argue that the campaign itself actually becomes a form of intervention.
Learning from Experience
Enough positions itself not solely as a reporting mechanism but more so as a site of recovery and agency. The charity notes that a substantial majority of survivors currently do not report sexual violence formally. It argues that systems should adapt to survivors, rather than requiring survivors to navigate systems they may find inaccessible or overwhelming.
Crucially, it is important to note that Enough is not intended to replace the police or SARCs. Instead, it works alongside existing institutions by preserving information and lowering the threshold for future reporting. For some survivors, simply knowing evidence has been retained may provide reassurance or restore a sense of control during an otherwise chaotic experience. Others may never choose to report formally at all. Enough’s position, which is often neglected, is that survivors should still have options available to them regardless.
The scale of the issue makes these discussions difficult to ignore. Estimates suggest there are hundreds of thousands of rapes every year in the UK, while university campuses remain environments where concerns surrounding sexual violence continue to persist. That reality is precisely why student involvement matters. At King’s, groups including KCL Football and KCL Rugby have already volunteered to support the campaign, helping broaden awareness beyond the usual activist circles.
It was such a rewarding experience, and I am a much better person as a result, with much more knowledge about volunteering in an efficient manner where I can make a real difference and additionally, a more informed view about the aftermath of such a life-changing subject.
The Paddling Pool People
Volunteering for Enough was ultimately a slightly surreal experience. On the surface, it mostly involved sweating in the heat beside a paddling pool while trying to persuade busy students to stop for thirty seconds. But beneath that slightly absurd image sat something much more serious: an attempt to rethink how society approaches prevention, evidence, reporting, and most importantly, recovery.
So next time you see a group of students dressed in fluorescent orange on campus, stop for a conversation. Even if you leave unconvinced, the discussion itself is probably part of the point. And at least you can say you spoke to the paddling pool people.
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