Maine West flash mob seeks end to violence against women
Some Maine West High School students got to school early Friday to be part of a before class flash mob, performing dances, poetry and other spectacles to promote ending violence against women.
Similar events were held at noon at Oakton Community College in Des Plaines and Skokie and in the evening at the Gail Borden Library in Elgin as part of a worldwide One Billion Rising campaign to raise awareness.
V-Day, a global activist movement dedicated to ending violence against women and girls, coordinates the events, which occur in more than 160 countries around the world.
The campaign, which maintains that one billion women will be raped or beaten in their lifetime, is calling for one billion men and women to demand an end to the violence.
This was the second year Maine West participated, with around 100 students performing, and a full cafeteria for an audience.
The effort was led by Voice for the Nameless, a human rights group, dance teacher and Orchesis director Lisa Jacob and her students, said Randall Harper, faculty sponsor of the human rights group. Members of the Poetry Slam team and others collaborated in the effort and many of Harper's students made posters.
More information is at onebillionrising.org and vday.org.