Austin Takes Part In Global 'One Billion Rising' Event

AUSTIN, TX -- Austin activists staged the local “One Billion Rising” event in front of City Hall on St. Valentine’s Day as part of a global movement calling for an end to rape and sexual violence against women.

The movement was started by Eve Ensler in 2012. The “billion” in the title refers to a United Nations statistic that one in three women will be raped or beaten during her lifetime. Ensler is an American playwright, performer, feminist and activist. She is perhaps best known for her play, “The Vagina Monologues.”

Event organizer Laramie Gorbett, a human trafficking specialist at the Texas Association Against Sexual Abuse (TAASA) said it was important to have staged the event not only to call attention to the issue of sexual violence against women, but to offer support to survivors and provide them with the courage to speak out.

“I think it’s important for several reasons,” she said. “One, to show solidarity with survivors here locally and globally, and also the strength that comes with sharing stories.”

The event took place Feb. 14 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. as hundreds of similar gatherings took place throughout the world.

“It’s no coincidence that we celebrate ‘One Billion Rising’ on Valentine’s Day,” said speaker Angela-Jo Touza-Medina, executive director of the Austin YWCA. “As survivors, we know that violence against women is often misconstrued as a warped, two-bit version of what love looks like. As survivors, we’ve learned that we want everyone to know that they deserve better.”

Touza-Medina was joined by an array of speakers, dancers and performers that included Deborah Tucker, president of the National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence board of directors; Brooke Axtell and John Nehme of Allies Against Slavery; Larissa Davila, owner of BCO Consulting Group; singer Timeca Cosseti; and poets Allyssa Marie and Anne Belle Burleson.

Continuing on the theme of healthy affection on a day celebrating the tactics of love, Touza-Medina quoted a familiar poet.

“My thoughts on love are more along the lines of what Maya Angelou said,” Touza-Medina added. “ ‘Love is that condition in the human spirit so profound that it empowers us to develop courage; to trust that courage and build bridges with it; to trust those bridges and cross over them so we can attempt to reach each other.’ ”

That bridge is both conceptual and tangible, she noted: “I believe this echoes the reason we are here today. standing together and dancing with people different from us and the same from us all around the world. We are building real and metaphorical bridges and networks to end violence against women. to fight against what seems to destine most of us the one of three women that will be beaten and raped in her lifetime; to encourage each other to speak out, to ask for help, to catch each other when we fall and to offer each other safe passage.”

Event participants read poetry, sang and danced at the event, which was attended by members of the public in an outdoors staging area fronting municipal headquarters. Some of the speakers gave moving testimony about their own stories of survival against the scourge of domestic violence.

Also present were officials from Ko Incubator School and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The former launched in the fall of 2014 with 33 students undergoing innovative education methods rooted in conscious capitalism and entrepreneurship.

The YWCA and Planned Parenthood set up informational tables at the event. Also in attendance were representatives from SafePlace, an organization that serves the survivors of child abuse and neglect, sexual assault, exploitation and domestic violence.

Dance India, Dance Another World and Amber Rose provided the day’s entertainment.

At event’s end, those gathered danced, appropriately enough, to the song “Love Train” by the O’Jays.

>>> Photos: Event participants dance to Love Train; singer Timeca Cosseti.