Are you one of the billion?

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by Tiffany Beckedorf

V-Day Oliver Osoyoos is looking for volunteers! We are a community based group who are going into our third year of campaigning, raising funding and creating awareness to stop violence against women and girls.

On March 8th of 2015 we will be hosting an art show to celebrate One Billion Rising; in an effort to ‘show the power of art and the astonishing and political alchemy that occurs when art and activism happen simultaneously’.  One Billion Rising is the biggest mass action in human history.

The campaign, launched on Valentine’s Day 2012, began as a call to action based on the staggering 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.  We will be sending out a call to artists with this year’s theme for the art show very soon, so keep your eyes open for that.

Then in April, we will be staging The Vagina Monologues.  ‘Hailed by The New York Times as “funny” and “poignant” and by the Daily News as “intelligent” and “courageous,” The Vagina Monologues, which was first performed off-Broadway by Ms. Ensler, dives into the mystery, humor, pain, power, wisdom, outrage and excitement buried in women’s experiences.  Ms. Ensler has performed the play to great acclaim throughout the world – from Zagreb to Santa Barbara, from London to Seattle, from Jerusalem to Oklahoma City.’  V-Day Oliver-Osoyoos is thrilled to be making a return to this piece, after the great success we experienced in 2013.  We are looking for readers to participate onstage, as well as behind the scenes crew members.

The best way to find out if this is a campaign you might want to be a part of is to come out to our next meeting on Thursday, October 23 at 7 pm at the OIB Resource Center (located to the right of Sen Pok Chin as you drive in).  Please join us as we strive to empower women to find their collective voices and demand an end to the violence that affects one in three women around the world.