Fethiye, Turkey – Residents of Fethiye joined the global ‘rise up and dance’ event on 14 February 2013 aimed to raise the profile of violence against women and girls.
It attracted several hundred participants/spectators to the Cultural Centre on Valentine’s Day. No doubt there would have been many more if the weather had stayed fine.
1 Billion Event 14 February 2013 – Fethiye, Turkey
This is where it should have taken place but the rain forced it under the covered area outside the Cultural Centre.
Some lucky women had printed t-shirts and lots of other people wished they had them too – commercial opportunity for next year?
FETAV gave out red and green ribbons to be tied on wrists and shaken during the dance.
Stuart James from the Oludeniz Yarenler was the only British man supporting the dance – and one young Turkish man took part as you shall see
After posing for local press who were out in force and a couple of practise run throughs of the dance, the event officially kicked off.
The Turkish presenter (did she buy the jacket specially we asked ourselves) welcomed everyone and explained the day’s aim.
She was followed by a Turkish woman who welcomed everyone in English.
Then a young Turkish woman read a poem about the aims of the day.
And then Pauline read the same poem in English and introduced herself by saying “I slept well last night because I didn’t know I was doing this till I got here”. Nevertheless she did it really well.
A team of British women took to the stage to lead the dance – though the crowd dancing below was mainly Turkish.
In fact the only other male dancer that we saw was this young Turkish man on the front row.
By now the place was really jumping and, after everyone had performed the dance all the way through twice, the Belediye band struck up and a Turkish singer took to the stage.
It was a very good event with more or less everything to the point conducted in both English and Turkish, and a really good atmosphere. In fact we’re looking forward to 14 February 2014 and this one hasn’t finished yet!
More Information
For more information on the aim, objectives and reasons for this event please see the onebillionrising website here.
