ONE BILLION RISING – ST PETE RISING
One Billion Rising is a mass movement focused on ending all forms of violence against women and girls. The name, One Billion, comes from the statistic that one in three women will be beaten or raped in their lifetime, which amounts to over a billion women and girls enduring sexual and/or physical violence at some point in life. The movement launched in 2012 with a call to action for people to rise up against the violence women and girls faced.
Through a group called “I Am Choice Community Changemakers,” in collaboration with Liz Prisley created the format and produced events called St. Pete Rising as a part of One Billion Rising movement.
ST PETE RISING - Year 1
We held St. Pete Rising at Studio @ 620 in downtown St. Petersburg. We exceed seating capacity and ended up with a standing room. The event incorporated service announcements from other local groups like CASA, a local organization providing services for domestic abuse survivors and their children. For the event programming, we created two teams in take part in a poetry battle and then had three live music performances as interludes. The poets taking part in the performance were: Kali, Tom Earl, A.V. Garde, and Jimmy Dunson. The musical performers included: Jun Bustamante, John Clarke, and Betty Fox. The team I worked with to make the event happen included: Morgan, Liz, Amanda, and Chuck.
ST PETE RISING – Year 2
We held St. Pete Rising at Studio @ 620 in downtown St. Petersburg. Again, we exceed seating capacity and ended up with a standing room. The event incorporated service announcements from other groups the Coalition of the Immokalee Workers. For this event, we based our programming on Howard Zinn’s “Voices of a People's History of the United States.” We opened with a song and a poem, and then went into 13 monologue performances. For the monologues, we had performers, poets, and volunteers give dramatic readings from speeches and excerpts from social active women from the late 19th century to now. Jun Bustamante honored us the opening musical performance and Sam Obeid with the opening poem. Please click here to view the list of monologues and corresponding performers. The team I worked with to make the event happen included: Morgan, Liz, Sam, Samantha, Colleen, and Crystal.
