Students arrived on their own and in groups to the Women’s Resource Center’s “Take Back the Night” event Tuesday afternoon on the steps of the Crimson Promenade.
Maria Perez-Fisher, Peer Education Programs coordinator for the Women’s Resource Center and director of Take Back the Night, said she envisioned nothing less.
“This is an international march and rally held every year,” Perez-Fisher said. “This has been done on the UA campus since about 1986.”
“Night,” Perez-Fisher explained, stands as a metaphor for fear. “Essentially, this rally is about us taking back the fear, taking back our bodies, and reclaiming our voices. And not just for women, but for men as well,” she said.
Perez-Fisher opened the event with a quick introduction, and promptly turned the microphone over to Kerry Gould, an avid supporter of the event and a spokesman for Verizon Wireless.
“Verizon supports the abolition of domestic violence,” Gould said before he took his place behind the podium before the crowd. “It’s actually one of our primary objectives as a company—one of our outside ways into the community.”
According to a news release provided by Verizon, Verizon Wireless launched a program called “Know It Forward” on April 1. The program, according to the release, aims to increase awareness of sexual assault particularly among college-age students through various social media outlets.
“These are things you’re very good at,” Gould said, referring to social media like Facebook and Twitter. “Through this program, we’ve actually raised about $10,000 in Birmingham.”
The funds raised, Gould said, go to another of Verizon’s initiatives pitched to the crowd by the spokesman. Verizon’s HopeLine, Gould said, supports the wireless company’s initiative to abolish domestic violence.
“You come in with your own phone, and drop it off in the bin,” Gould said, “and they recycle it. They money that they take when they recover the parts, they send wholly to domestic violence shelters.”
Gould said that through the HopeLine program, Verizon has given tens of thousands of dollars to domestic violence shelters across Alabama and the surrounding region.
The event continued with poetry readings, speeches and a testimonial by an unidentified woman, who praised the support systems that helped her after she was sexually assaulted.
The event culminated with a march to the Quad and an accompanying candlelight vigil. Perez-Fisher closed the event by reading a poem.
Elle Shaban-Magana, director of the Women’s Resource Center, said she was pleased with the turnout.
“I would estimate there are around 150 people in the crowd,” Shaban-Magana said “All of the turn out is thanks to all of our partnerships on campus and in the community.”
“This issue affects so many people around us,” she said. “We like to use this event to raise awareness and have it serve as a means to advocate for social change.”
