Press Release: One Billion Rising in Winnemucca, NV!




One Billion Rising in Winnemucca, NV



Press Release by Sarah Reno Baker, Volunteer Advocate



Get involved, participate, and share the word with this AWESOME event! From February 14 through March 8th we encourage people to to share their stories through words, pictures, and video, and help to end violence against women! Education is the key to awareness, so let's start educating and get involved! As we at Humboldt AVA say, "Don't be a victim, become a survivor!" Let's empower women all over the world!

WHAT IS ONE BILLION RISING?
About One Billion Rising*

One Billion Rising is the biggest mass action to end violence against women in human history. The campaign, launched on Valentine’s Day 2012, began as a call to action based on the staggering statistic that 1 in 3 women on the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime. With the world population at 7 billion, this adds up to more than ONE BILLION WOMEN AND GIRLS. On 14 February 2013, people across the world came together to express their outrage, strike, dance, and RISE in defiance of the injustices women suffer, demanding an end at last to violence against women. On 14 February 2014, One Billion Rising for Justice focused on the issue of justice for all survivors of gender violence, and highlighted the impunity that lives at the intersection of poverty, racism, war, the plunder of the environment, capitalism, imperialism, and patriarchy. For the third year of the campaign, One Billion Rising’s global coordinators chose the theme of “Revolution” as an escalation of the demand for justice, and to build upon the massive efforts of communities worldwide that also looked at the roots and causes of violence as part of their call for justice. On (or around) 14 February 2015, millions of activists in over 200 countries gathered to Rise for REVOLUTION, to change the paradigm, demand accountability, justice and systematic CHANGE. We are rising to show we are determined to create a new kind of consciousness – one where violence will be resisted until it is unthinkable. In 2016, the theme of Revolution continues with a call to focus on marginalised women and to bring national and international focus to their issues; to bring in new artistic energy; to amplify Revolution as a call for system change to end violence against women and girls; to call on people to rise for others, and not just for ourselves.

ABOUT THE EVENT**
Participate any time, anywhere beginning February 14, 2016 through March 8, 2016!

Get up and dance! In your house, your workplace, your school, anywhere YOU feel survivors of violence and those who love them should feel safe and entitled to justice! Send us your videos or pics of you and loved ones dancing in support of survivors of violence everywhere (images will not be posted without permission from all individuals featured)!

 On 14 February 2016, we are escalating our efforts, calling on women and men everywhere to RISE, RELEASE, DANCE, and demand JUSTICE! Through our collective efforts we mobilised, engaged, awakened and joined people worldwide to end violence against women. We made violence against women a global human issue not relegated to country or tribe or class or religion. We revealed it as a patriarchal mandate, present in every culture of the world. In our justice campaign we made visible, volatile and impacting connections between violence against women and economic, environmental, racial, gender injustice.

We formed new and hopefully lasting coalitions between existing groups and individuals not only within the women’s movement but also between people’s movements covering diverse sectors. We showed that there is nothing more powerful than global solidarity as it makes all of us safer in our outspokenness, braver in what we feel willing to do. It inspires all of us to go further when we know the eyes of the world are on us.

Through One Billion Rising laws were created, passed and enforced. Leaders were born, politicians were held to the fire, major and invisible injustices were highlighted and proven undeniable. Our cries for each of our particular justices rose and merged in a sea of cries and demands, creating a new collage, a new collective vision and radical landscape of what a just world might look like for women and girls. Everyone faced obstacles, attack, doubt, distrust, questions, lack of resources, impossible odds, family needs, and went beyond where even we thought we could go. So we have much to celebrate!

What we also did was show the power of art and dance and the astonishing and political alchemy that occurs when art and activism happen simultaneously. Dance is one of the most powerful forces on the earth and we have only just begun to tap into where it can take us. The struggle of humanity is the struggle to return to our bodies. Through trauma, cruelty, shame, oppression, violence, rape, exclusion, the body of the human species has been hurt, wounded, and we have been forced to flee our bodies. This same cruelty, rape oppression, has been enacted on the earth and the consequences have been dire. We are verging on total catastrophe and collapse of life as we know it. Dancing allows us to come back into our bodies as individuals and groups and a world, it connects our feet to the earth and inspires us to move to her rhythms. It allows us to go further, to include everyone, to tap into a revolutionary and poetic energy, which is inviting us to take the lid off the patriarchal container releasing more of our wisdom, our self love, our sexuality, our compassion, and fierceness. Dancing is defiance. It is joyous and raging. It is contagious and free and beyond corporate or state control. We have only begun to dance. This year we must continue to go much further.

We must go all the way and make the change!



ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION
ADVOCATES FOR VICTIMS OF ABUSE (AVA)

Advocates for Victims of Abuse is a 501(c)(3) community-based program for the prevention, education, and advocacy against relationship abuse, sexual violence, bullying, and child abuse and neglect in Humboldt County, Winnemucca, NV.
We collaborate with community agencies and organizations to raise awareness and education about relationship abuse and sexual violence, prevention, and what to do in case of a sexual assault. We also provide referrals and resources to local and statewide agencies and programs that can assist the survivors of relationship abuse, sexual violence, child abuse and neglect, and bullying and their loved ones affected by the trauma.
We provide on-call advocacy for relationship abuse and sexual assault support services, with trained advocates in crisis intervention and community advocacy.
The mission of AVA is to empower those victimized by abuse and/or violence through advocacy and crisis intervention and to raise awareness in the community about the cause, impact, and prevention of relationship abuse, sexual violence, child abuse and neglect, and bullying.


*www.onebillionrising.org


**http://www.onebillionrising.org/events/1-billion-rising-for-justice-in-winnemucca/



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