It’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow and a Sitka violence prevention group is celebrating with drums. Sitkans Against Family Violence, or SAFV, is inviting people to a drum performance by the group, Haa Toow’u Litseen, on Thursday.
It’s part of V-Day, a worldwide call-to-action to stop violence against women and girls. It was started by Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues.
The event is called One Billion Rising. It hopes to inspire 1 billion women and those who love them to rise up, dance and strike to demand an end to violence against women. One billion is the number of women in the world who will have been raped or beaten in their lifetime.
Elena Gustafson works for SAFV and says V-Day chose dancing for a reason. She quotes Eve Ensler here.
“Dancing insists that we take up space,” she said. “It has no set direction, but that we go there together. it breaks the rules. It can happen anytime, anywhere, with anyone. It can’t be controlled. it joins us and pushes us to go further. It’s contagious and spreads quickly. It’s of the body and it spreads quickly.”
Gustafson says everyone — including men — is encouraged to attend because violence against women isn’t just a women’s issue, it’s a human issue.
The V-Day drum performance and dance is at the Crescent Harbor Shelter from noon to 1 p.m. tomorrow.
For more information about the Sitka event, you can visit the event posting on SAFV’s Facebook page or email Elena at elena.gustafson@gmail.com. To learn about One Billion Rising, visit onebillionrising.org.
