The Million Women Rise march is a mass public demonstration against violence towards women. Hundreds of thousands of women are expected at today’s event which will include speeches and music.
Schedule for the day:
12pm Meet opposite Hyde Park (Speakers Corner End) on Park Lane
(Nearest Tubes: 1 Min from Marble Arch)
MARCH ROUTE set off 1pm: OXFORD ST, REGENTS ST, PICCADILLY
RALLY AND CELEBRATION: 3 – 4.30PM TRAFALGAR SQUARE
(Nearest Tube: Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, Charing Cross)
AFTER MARCH CELEBRATION: 4.30pm – 1am ALL welcome. Food, performances, swimming pool, DJs and chill-out space. Entry fee on the door — donation if unwaged, £5 low-waged and £10 waged. The 52 Club, 52 Gower Street WC1E6EB, a wheelchair accessible venue.
COACHES, BUSES, MOBILITY ACCESS
DROP OFF: PARK LANE (PARK SIDE)
PICK UP: VICTORIA EMBANKMENT – RIVERSIDE NEAREST TRAFALGAR SQUARE – CENTRAL LONDON (PLEASE NOTE, THIS HAS CHANGED FROM PALL MALL).
Speakers for 2010
Cath Elliot, trade union and feminist activist, blogger
Cath Elliott is an unrepentant feminist and a trade union activist. She is also a freelance writer and blogger.
Cath has been active in UNISON for the last ten years, where she has been mainly involved in women’s self-organisation and in campaigning and speaking out against violence against women. She is the chair of UNISON’s Eastern Region Women’s Committee, and is a member of UNISON’s National Women’s Committee.
Cath has spoken regularly at trade union conferences on issues such as rape, domestic violence, prostitution and trafficking, and so-called honour crimes. In June 2009 she was a guest speaker at the launch of Object and Eaves’ Demand Change Campaign; in December 2009 she was a guest speaker at the European Conference on Human Trafficking in Stockholm, Sweden, and in February 2010 she presented a workshop on trafficking and prostitution at the National Rape Crisis (England and Wales) annual conference.
As well as writing for and maintaining her own blog, Cath writes regularly for the Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’ site and for the popular Liberal Conspiracy blog. She has written extensively about rape and sexual violence, domestic violence, and other issues of violence against women, and she has appeared on both TV and radio defending a woman’s right to choose.
Cath is a staunch advocate of by women for women support services: she has previously served on the Rights of Women management committee, and she is currently on the steering group of Suffolk Rape Crisis, helping to set up a much needed rape crisis provision in Ipswich. She is also a member of Abortion Rights and the Fawcett Society.
Cath is a committed campaigner against violence against women and has personal experience of both sexual and domestic violence. She is a familiar face on violence against women events such as Million Women Rise and Reclaim the Night, and she is proud to be a part of the feminist movement.
Charlotte, singer songwriter
Eleanor Lisney, Disability Awareness in Action
Eleanor was born and bred Malaysian Chinese. After her studies and marriage in England, she spent a considerable time in France being wife, and mother of two lovely children in France before her continuing studies and work in the USA. She returned to UK after her divorce.
Eleanor is passionate about access and works for inclusive travel for women and Disabled people, setting up a social enterprise, Connect Culture, connecting inclusive travel with different cultures including disability culture. As an information specialist and access advisor, she works for Disability Awareness in Action, an information network on disability and human rights providing information and evidence to support disabled people in their own actions to secure their rights — at all levels: local, national, regional and international.
She is the access coordinator for the Million Women Rise Rally 2010. She is a member of the CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women) working group for Women Policy Forum (W.A.I.T.S), in Birmingham and on the Executive Committee for the Council of Disabled People, Warwickshire and Coventry.
Femi Otitoju, Black lesbian activist
Jennifer McDermott, Cassandra Learning Centre
Judith Adorkorach, CARE International, Northern Uganda
Leila Parnian, Iranian Women’s League
Michelle Daley,
Michelle is a freelance trainer and consultant in disability equality and diversity issues and has played a key role in promoting and influencing the inclusion of disabled people in the mainstream.
Michelle is a survivor of special education and now campaigns for an inclusive education system. She is also a founder member of the 2020 Campaign.
For a number of years Michelle has actively worked at the grass root level addressing issues such as access, education, independent living and cultural diversity.
She has worked for a number of organisations both at local, national and international level to develop, promote and implement policies on equality and diversity.
Justice Hotep, artist, actress, film director
Patsy McKie, Mothers Against Violence
Sarah Bennett, singer
Awarded the Princes Trust Young Achiever of the Year title in 2003, Sarah Kate Bennett has performed with the likes of Jools Holland and Will Young.
After leaving home at the age of 15 because of physical, mental, and sexual abuse, Sarah Kate is now studying for a degree in social work at the University of Birmingham.
Self-taught on the guitar and completely musically illiterate, it is the depth of her voice and sincerity of lyrics that stand her aside from other musicians. Sarah Kate is not just looking for fame, she is not just looking for riches, she is looking to reach out and connect to other sisters who, like her, battle to remain a survivor.
Sharon Facey, Cassandra Learning Centre
Zawal Kafaf, Iraqi Women’s League UK
Suswati Basu, student, writer, activist
Suswati is a student at School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London studying Mandarin and History. She credits the support of her mother for the ease in which she has self described as a feminist for years. And Suswati proudly proclaims an insatiable interest in the rights of women in London and beyond.
Suswati’s activism takes many forms. She is a member of London Feminist Network and when in London regularly participates in LFN’s annual ‘Reclaim the Night’. In the university milieu she is a member of The Women’s Society at SOAS (and was for a time the organisation’s president), and she had a major role in organising protests against university women’s participation in beauty pageants. Currently working closely with the Women and Girls Network, she hopes to represent the reality faced by young women today. She regularly organises fundraising events and publicly speaks about the problems within a professional institution.
Suswati has been working with local women activists in China and laying the ground work for future research based trips to the East.
Originally published in Subtext magazine, written by Debra V. Wilson
Vivienne Hayes, Women’s Resource Centre
Vivienne Hayes is the Chief Executive of the Women’s Resource Centre (WRC). WRC is the national umbrella body for the women’s voluntary and community sector, providing capacity building services to member organisations working to improve the lives of women, and consulting on and responding to government policy affecting the sector. She studied sociology at Warwick University, Women’s History at Essex University and more recently Management at Westminster University. Vivienne’s first inspiration comes from her mother, a working class woman who left school in her early teens to work in a factory, but who impressed upon her children the importance of education and an open mind. Vivienne has spent the last 20 years working in the women’s sector, both delivering and managing services. Her passion is to support and improve the life experiences of women and their children, and most of her work has focused on this. Having grown up during a time when feminism and equalities issues were firmly on the agenda, Vivienne recognises the need to continue to raise these issues at a time when things seem to be slipping back in terms of progress for women and the whole equalities debate.
Vivienne is a Trustee of Rosa, the UK women’s fund and has recently been appointed a commissioner of the Women’s National Commission. She is also Chair of HEAR, London’s regional equalities and human rights VCS network.
Anna Travers
I am a member of Mothers against Violence, a branch of the main organization based in Leeds. The mantel fell on my shoulders after it’s chair, Pat Regan, was herself murdered by a system injustice, her grandson was mentally ill and his illness murdered her in 2006..I refused to watch her hard work go in vain. I am a survivor of street prostitution who has teenagers trapped into today’s times. I am driven by this to do all I can to keep them safe and change the world they live in. I have currently taken on the games company Rock star games about their violent games. I have had no reply yet. I am also waiting for permission to use a similar logo to make an educational tool that may help undo some of the damage the games have done, by bringing back some basic human empathy as well as attempting to bring both genders together by starting another branch of MAV named YMAV Youth Movement Against Violence. I believe that we now need to start promoting love and peace and make it the new trend.
We often turn to our young people to find out what is bothering them. I believe we should be empowering them and allowing them to make change in their lives NOW This will be the aim of the movement. We would like to see our young teaching professionals in a diplomatic way. After all a mothers job is to empower our young and in this day and age MAV feels it’s a must.
Tags: domestic violence, Prostitution
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