by Freeda Cathcart
Women gathered inside Valley View Mall to bring attention to the resources to help prevent violence against women and to help those experiencing violence. This is the 6th year there has been a One Billion Rising event in Roanoke!
The event opened with the “Break The Chain” dance. Dina Hackley-Hunt, education and outreach coordinator for Sexual Assault Response and Awareness, spoke about resources SARA has to help survivors of sexual assault including free counseling. SARA’s mission is to respond to sexual violence in the Roanoke Valley through an empowerment model that is trauma-informed collaborative and multidisciplinary.
Yzavia Haney, a survivor, encouraged women who are experiencing violence to use the resources available to them, spoke about how the first people she told didn’t believe her but she kept reaching out until she found people who believed and helped her.
Freeda Cathcart informed people about the 2019 One Billion Rising Campaign from their website OneBillionRising.org:
“We are living in a time of upheaval and transformation, together we have been rising to free women (cisgender, transgender, and those who hold fluid identities who are subject to gender based violence) from sexual and physical violence in its more overt and obvious forms: rape, battery, incest, sexual harassment, female genital mutilation, sexual slavery and trafficking, child marriage, etc. And there have been many victories!
As we enter our 7th year of One Billion Rising, we are faced with bigger challenges. Ending violence against women, requires a deeper commitment to a deeper examination of violence in all its forms. Along with sexual and physical violence, we must also look at systemic violence in economic, political, socio-cultural, environmental and ideological spheres.
As we continue to Rise to end violence against women it is imperative now for us to expand our understanding of women’s oppression and exploitation in the context of capitalism, colonization, racism, imperialism, environmental plunder and war. We have been compartmentalized and divided for too long. Our Rising must now connect our specific oppression to the common universal humanity that binds us all. This is no less than a way of life, a way of seeing, a way of being in the world. It is not one day that we rise, but every day that this consciousness must rise in all we do.
We challenge you this year to be braver, go deeper, reflect, study, listen, learn and become awakened to what you don’t know. Ask difficult questions, engage, take actions, and push yourselves out of your physically and intellectually comfort zones and become committed to resistance and solidarity. As “Rising” is no longer a campaign – it is a way of life!”
The League of Women Voters of the Roanoke Valley provided information encouraging people to contact their Congress Members to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act that expired in December. Other important legislation people can support is ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment by contacting your state representatives. You can find out representatives or by going to https://whosmy.virginiageneralassembly.gov/
The event was co-sponsored by Valley View Mall, the Council of Community Services and the League of Women Voters of the Roanoke Valley. SARA and the Turning Point provided resources for the community; sound was provided by Wendy Godley.
