Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming
The talk tomorrow will be followed up by a Philadelphia City Council Hearing on street harassment on Thursday morning at 10 a.m.! SSH will join Hollaback! Philly and FAAN Mail, as well as other groups and community members, in testifying.
In Egypt, there is a new campaign called, “We Will Ride Bicycles,” intended to confront street harassment. Today was their first event and women and their male allies rode bicycles around Cairo!
“Riding a bicycle and feeling the breeze of the air is one of our simplest dreams,” said the campaign’s event page, adding that all women should be allowed to freely ride bicycles without being harassed or judged.
The activists behind the campaign said they chose the theme of riding bicycles to promote women and girl’s rights to run errands through cycling without being afraid of attracting negative reaction in the streets.
Scheduled for Saturday, the event’s assembly point will be outside October War Panorama on Saleh Salem Street and its end point will be at Azhar Park.
“The campaign’s main objective is confronting the unjustified rejection of the community concerning females riding bicycles,” said Michael Nazeh, one of the founders of the campaign.”
What a great idea! If you’re in Washington, D.C., there will be a similar event next Saturday, Oct. 19, benefiting our friends Collective Action for Safe Spaces! Info/RSVP.
Dear Chicago Supporters,
If you’re free on Sunday afternoon, you won’t want to miss our Safe Public Spaces Mentoring Site’s event that includes comics, spoken word, and the premiere of their film which is a parody of dating commercials.
Three couples (including one gay couple) pretend they met through street harassment. Check out a photo from the film shoot —>
Please RSVP and spread the word about the event!
Shout-out to site lead Phaydra Babinchok for all of her hard work and to BluPrint Designs for volunteering their talents to create the flyer.
By: Quazi Baby, Executive Director of Participatory Development Action Program
On 17 September at 11 a.m. Participatory Development Action Program (PDAP) arranged a rally on Street Harassment in Dhaka, Bangladesh. About 50 participants (including men, women, girls and boys) joined at the rally, holding a banner where it was written “Campaign against street Harassment ”. While walking along the road, participants shouted, “Stop Street Harassment!” The rally was finished at 11:45 a.m.
After finishing the rally, 20 grassroots women, girls, men and boys came to PDAP’s office and attended at the discussion programme. I explained about the reason for street harassment and how we can protest this harassment. Grassroots leaders explained about the present situation for girls and women. They said we all are unsafe on the street. We all need to protest jointly with other organization. But we do not have enough time to do this, because we need to earn money for running our family.
During the discussion, four grassroots leaders Ms. Madina, Ms. abida, Ms. Akbari Ms. Noorjahan spoke on their sufferings where they are living and what they do to overcome the situation. Besides, two young girls (Shirin and Ferdoushi) and two young boys (Mehdi and Noor) were spoken about their feelings and showed their solidarity to protest against harassment.
TODAY, 4 p.m. EST, We End Violence is hosting their bimonthly Agents of Change Facebook discussion with SSH and Hollaback!
The discussion will cover: street harassment and how it’s NOT a compliment, how we can respond to harassers, and how to talk about it with friends.