Dillingham residents participated in the global dance event, One Billion Rising, in an effort to raise awareness about violence against women
On Tuesday more than two dozen people turned out for a One Billion Rising dance event in Dillingham, part of a worldwide effort to raise awareness about violence against women. Andria Budbill helped organize the event and choreograph the dance.
“One Billion Rising is a global event. The goal is to stand in solidarity against the exploitation of women around the world. The number one billion comes from the sad fact that one in three women are abused or raped at some point in their lives. If you kind of do the simple math that about half the population of the earth are women, that’s three billion. One in three, so that’s one billion women who have been abused or raped in their lifetime.”
Organizers spoke about the prevalence of sexual assault globally and in Southwest Alaska, which according to some studies has rates among the highest per capita in the nation. Gregg Marxmiller is the outreach coordinator at SAFE:
“The Alaska Victimization Survey is a survey that was done all over Alaska, and it said that half of women in Alaska have been abused sometime in their life. They did another survey this last year, 2015, and it showed that there’s an over 30 percent reduction in domestic violence rates in Alaska. So what we’re doing here, we may not know the exact effects, but things are changing. They’re changing for the positive.
This was the third time Dillingham participated in the One Billion Rising choreographed event, which was started in 2012. A dessert auction afterwards aimed to raise money for local programs that aid victims of domestic and sexual violence.
