Geelong’s Johnstone Park will transform its green landscapes into orange this weekend to help eliminate violence against women and girls.
Zonta Club of Geelong will launch its 16 Days of Activism campaign on Sunday, November 24, with a 9.45am walk from the Barwon Water building in Ryrie Street to Johnstone Park.
Secretary Chris Denmead said Sunday’s event would feature guest speakers and live music, with everyone welcome to join in on the day.
“We’d love people to come to Johnstone Park on Sunday morning at 10am and be at the launch to hear the speakers and the music we’ll have,” she said.
“We’ll also have orange knitting on about 10 trees around town. So, they’ll have these big orange blankets with a sign on them that says, ‘Zonta says no to violence against women’.”
The 16 Days of Activism campaign will begin on November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and conclude on December 10, Human Rights Day.
Ms Denmead said she encouraged people attending the event to wear orange to support the campaign.
“We use the colour orange to signify the campaign of the 16 Days of Activism, which was a colour the United Nations chose as bright and cheerful looking,” she said.
“The more orange we can generate, and the more questions people ask, highlights the need for the ongoing campaign to eliminate violence.
“It’s important to us that we get out there and advocate for the elimination of domestic violence as much as we can, and it is something that we put a lot of time and effort into at this time of year.”
The 16 Days of Activism is an international campaign inspired by an incident on November 25, 1960, with sisters and political activists Patria, Minerva and Maria Teresa Mirabal.
The sisters, who opposed the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic’s cruelty and systematic violence, were killed and dumped at the bottom of a cliff by Trujillo’s secret police.
November 25 was declared as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women in Latin America in 1980 to commemorate the Mirabal sisters’ deaths, with the International Day formally recognised by the United Nations in 1999.
The Centre for Women’s Global Leadership, alongside participants of the first Women’s Global Institute on Women, Violence and Human Rights, called for the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence global campaign in June 1991.
