One Billion Rising for Justice: Zonta Club of Coos Bay Area Joins Global Campaign, Feb. 14

On February, 14, 2014, at noon, Zonta Club of Coos Bay Area will join with activists around the world for ONE BILLION RISING FOR JUSTICE. The campaign will build upon the energy and momentum that was created on February 14, 2013 when one billion activists in 207 countries and territories came together to rise, strike, and dance, in the biggest mass action in human history, to demand an end to violence against women and girls.  This year, we will focus on the issue of justice for all survivors of gender violence, and ending the rampant impunity that prevails globally. ONE BILLION RISING FOR JUSTICE is a call to women, men, and youth around the world to gather safely on 14 February 2014 outside places where they are entitled to justice – court houses, police stations, government offices, school administration buildings, work places, sites of environmental injustice, military courts, embassies, places of worship, homes, or simply public gathering places where women deserve to feel safe but too often do not.  The campaign is a recognition that we cannot end violence against women without looking at the intersection of poverty, racism, war, the plunder of the environment, capitalism, imperialism, and patriarchy. Impunity lives at the heart of these interlocking forces.  Zonta Club of Coos Bay members will perform a FLASHMOB dance at the Pony Village Mall East entrance at noon on Friday, February 14, 2014. The performance will be followed by a short presentation on the Zonta Says No campaign and local community efforts to end violence against women and girls.  One Billion Rising was the biggest mass action in human history. The campaign began as a call to action based on the staggering UN 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 strike, dance, and RISE in defiance of the injustices women suffer, demanding an end at last to violence against women. Over 10,000 events took place on the ground and the campaign took over media and social media worldwide for 48 hours, trending in 207 countries. The wildly successful grassroots campaign was covered widely by media in all corners of world including The New York Times, The Guardian, NPR, and many more. www.onebillionrising.org  About V-Day – V-Day is a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls that raises funds and awareness through benefit productions of Playwright/Founder Eve Ensler’s award winning play The Vagina Monologues and other artistic works. The V-Day movement has raised over $100 million; educated millions about the issue of violence against women and the efforts to end it; crafted international educational, media and PSA campaigns; reopened shelters; and funded over 13,000 community-based anti-violence programs and safe houses in Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Kenya, Egypt, and Iraq. V-Day has received numerous acknowledgements and awards and is, one of the Top-Rated organizations on both Charity Navigator and Guidestar.  V-Day’s most recent global campaign, ONE BILLION RISING, galvanized over one billion women and men on a global day of action towards ending violence against women and girls. www.vday.org