welcome everybody happy valentine's day i'm tommy olson this is stacy kahn stacy hammarlund excuse me and we're here today not only celebrating valentine's day but being part of one billion rising one billion rising is a global effort to stop violence against women it is estimated that one woman out of every three has experienced violence in her life we think that needs to stop we are here as a local chapter of one billion rising we expect to become part of the community as belmont rising we should have a website shortly you can reach us at belmont rising at g mail dot com but today we are very excited to have a musical program a dance program and some interviews we will be here from two to performing together for the past twelve years about once a month at the arlington center and about once a week is my my gun ok and about once a week at the belmont senior center so they were pouring once a week on thursdays for past ten years and i'm a close group of friends under the direction of larry and if anybody's interested though they can catch them either on youtube or at the senior center on thursdays from one thirty three with open practices other sixty five not just going to say let the rest of the world go by and they're there every thursday from one thirty to three if you'd like to hear them in person and we are going to take a brief break and we'll be right back with more of the victory and valentine's and it's to address the topic of violence against women in the u s the u n states that one in every three women on the planet will either be physically or sexually abused in their lifetime so this is actually a global movement to call attention to that and the approach is that it's a society a societal and community problem and it needs a societal and a community solution and so we're here to represent the cup represent the community of belmont and invite you all to become indian a young indian woman who is twenty three years old and this happened right around christmas time i believe and so rita gave an in depth interview to n p r we happened to hear about it because both sta and i serve on a committee and and the interview was forwarded to us in addition some additional material as were sent to us and we thought rita had a lot to do a lot of information to impart to us as we focus on on creating more consciousness about the violence that that affects women both in our communities and abroad reader you want to tell us a little bit about  i came to sydney because of the guard that i was able to get for say the from bag boston i was a computer engineer working there and they asked me to be a part of the board and then since then i've been working is a different read of how can we here in america in belmont in particular help this this effort to say haley because you know one of the things you and i talked about was how this terrible atrocity occurred and i believe i read somewhere that there were several places along the way on this bus ride that people could have stopped how is it an educational is there something that we can contribute in terms of helping educate more people is it cultural how do we how do we help so there is lot of different ways we can help education is one raise one of the things is educating the legal as well as the police law enforcement in india do  that doesn't make it really the richest person or the person with influence if they break the law they need to be punished but that's one thing that is not happening in many times in india and being there living there for sixteen years even visiting every couple of years that i've experienced personally myself that a lot of times the laws are not followed they are in the books but they're not followed by the police or legal system being woman's either physically mentally financially it is not the correct thing to do is morally wrong it is wrong for the family and it is wrong for themselves because if woman is hurt then the whole family is going to be heard so it's very very important that we educate man or woman as well as other part of the society how do we go about doing that or how how you're does not speak a language are hard to get resources because they don't understand the legal system they don't speak the language and the culture is another thing when the south asian woman has an afraid to take a stance because they are afraid it would not be the right thing to do for the family ok as a woman born in america i have friends or if i know somebody or if i have a neighbor that is from another this caucasian woman who was in her seventy's c approached c found us on google let's say he was as he said i just want to let you know these young twenty three year old woman who isn't even across the street from me i was seen address and one eight six six for say haley is a four number that they can call anytime helpline that within twenty four hours somebody will be turned back to them with the resources and what other ways we can how well we're hoping to all sorrow have belmont rising dot org and we can maybe list all your these resources right on that we we hope to be part of belmont you know be part of one billion rising going forward and our our piece will be the belmont rising dot org so we can we can promote that yes we can act on the  the stage and we'll be back with some amazing dancers thinking of thank you thank you thank you but having me thank you for comi is the beats it it's a three based beat or a file based reader seven based so are these three words put together that is another theory that sold this name but of the nineteen came so now we're here to present this classical one billion rising one billion rising thank you very much hi thank you for being with us with one billion rising we are i'm tommy olsen we will be calling ourselves belmont rising our goal today is to instill a commitment in men and women around the world and locally to end the violence against women we've seen already  we want to also act locally in nina was kind enough to volunteer and talk to us a little bit about her own personal story of escaping violence and the directly at the camera just know that that's the reason so rita i'm sorry nina i'm sorry you know would you tell us a little bit about what you know what you experienced and some because being in a marriage with another woman is not terribly accepted in society that you were embarrassed the i think there were a multiple of even those i think a lot of people in general whether because of your site you felt more isolated i guess i think again i was hoping that there would be for revolution to all that that would you know in general people out there become less violent and there was some measure to see to that but it just kept perpetuating into a family of of making a path and i think you know it came to a point after amount of his girlfriend he and i mean i wish she had heard your your talk before i mean why did she not have the courage to leave someone who was positive changes but it got worse and i know for a fact that if i had not gone through that that home i wouldn't be and i would as a friend if i see a friend who i believe is in an abusive relationship am i going to be able to get through to that friend and say i'd like to help you or or they go how do i how do i bridge that without being without offending that person you the media is the message and the messenger and increasingly a powerful one in a world of a million channels people try to do more shocking and shocking things to break through the clutter they resort to violent images or sexually offensive images or demeaning images when is it going to be enough there is no appreciation for women intellectual it's all about the body go to the bathroom put on my team pounds and make you know when you're at school to learn as a culture women are brought up to be fundamentally in secure media creates consciousness and if what gets put out there that creates our consciousness is determined by men we're not going to make any progress little boys and little girls when they're seven years old and equal number want to be president of the united states when they grow up but then you ask the same question when they're fifteen and you see this massive gap emerging woman in the oval office most powerful person in the world what's the downside i mean besides the p m s and the mood swings the media treats women like shit and it's horrible and it's like i don't know how we survive i don't know how you can't be what you can't say it's extremely important for women to be writing their own stories and giving them to people to really emotionally be impacted by the media can be an instrument of change it can awaken people you back to belmont rising part of a global effort one billion rising to focus on violence against women and i have in the studio here with me erin mcneil and erin you're a journalist and you write about media that's right i write and marketing media childhood dot com and there we examine the influence of media messages on children and how to fix their health and well being and how to fix the culture my mission is to raise awareness on these issues so one thing that's really interesting is that kids are now watching or using entertainment media for more than seven half hours on average every day a staggering number that's pretty  as a parent or as part of community how does the media to address that but i think it's so important for us is the adults to teach kids about what they're seeing and help them to understand how to critically analyze it and deconstruct and even to understand that they don't have to accept some of those messages so i'm also involved with an organization called the massachusetts media literacy consortium and that's of media literacy is it's deconstruction and critical analysis and learning to make your own positive messages affecting how does media play a part of violence well in the media violence against women is becoming more and more prevalent in all different forms of media and television and video games print of about five years the incidence of storylines showing female victimization was significantly increase and also that the the number of teen girls who were victims really jumped by about four hundred percent and we had mentioned earlier this was a study measuring from two thousand and five to two thousand and nine and we both as parents of teenagers really kind of agreed that from two thousand and nine to two thousand  see these games my sons are playing and i cringe as a parent but as somebody who's just saying you know what's the big deal it's just it's just t v like why is this a problem well you know it leads to desensitisation and studies show this people are more likely to see women as these sort of weak sex objects who deserve to be beaten and raped and killed and violence against women is normal and acceptable so some people call it rape culture and i have a clip that i don't think it's going to play but  the there's the picture this t v newscaster says the bodies of several women were found brutally raped before they were brutally murdered and then it goes over to the the father who the family guy he's sitting in a bar and he says you know everybody's getting laid but me you know and that's that's supposed to be funny so a lot of adults will just sort of shrug that off but there are a lot of teenage teenagers young teen boys who are poor watching this and the message they're getting is that this is normal and acceptable so what other messages are out there  well another one that's that's typical is that the woman in peril so you see sort of a scantily dressed woman and she's in danger of being the victim of violence and is often portrayed been the the reason for the hero to come in and save her but this story was different these days it's more really graphic portrayal of what's happening to her and not so much the hero this is how they sell so close to teenage girls and looks like i'm about to be a gang rape there so this is this is what i'm talking about the woman in peril because it's not coming out too well on the screen but you know there she is on the right and this is in the york times so it's very mainstream and on the left there is a sort of example of objectification and showing female body parts and we'll talk about that later so how do you find this i'm going to have to skip ahead a little on the clock here so how does affect behavior of violence media leads to violence in the real world is that what studies are showing there are a lot of studies that show that in fact violence is one of them and in the media is one of the most studied  that's one of the most most studied areas of media and how it influences people children are especially affected they face shape their ideas early and their ideas and behaviors are shaped early and so this this has a real effect on them  in fact we're seeing we're seeing the incidence of teen dating violence really really high rates girls sixteen to twenty four are more likely to be a victim of intimate partner violence than any other age group by about three times as much so now you're really working with an organization that is trying to change that it's trying to bring some literacy to the to the youth and how do you how are you guys doing that with the organization yeah we we think it's really urgent that kids are getting education around what they're seeing the second half hours a day and they you know they don't have much of a chance to talk about this with education professionals and there are so many influences out there that they're  but they're subject to so we have a bill in the legislature that would require the department of education to put this into the schools and we're working hard to get pilot programs in the schools and because we think this is this is urgent you know this is this is a big part of kids lives they know how many months to get in touch with you or find out more about this where where would you suggest we look i could grow through here quickly the words this got short but i don't want to get you back on her for a very for coming and if there anything you want to say quickly in closing i know i mean there at the end i'm sorry yeah no that's that's that's ok i think i think we can make a real difference if we if we allow kids to to have the education that they need and we as adults in the world need to do something about about what's what children are learning and it's just it's not right to leave them exposed and exploited without the tools they need thank you so much and again if you want have any more questions you want to get back in touch with us an e mail you can use is bill not rising edge e mail dot com and we can get in touch with there and i will definitely get her back here for a longer more extensive look at this the images that we didn't get a chance to see were pretty impressive and there are things we see every day and just kind of glaze over and don't realize what we're seeing so it's really important to thank you again for coming in today i think and i take it to make a very quick break and switch guests i'll be right back thank you no attempted to get some information again with our our goal of providing resources or information for women locally deb has something that she's been doing with provide services for homeless families they provide both american see shelter transitional housing and permanent housing my office remax renaissance realty which is in cushion square  local collection center for the one billion rising movement in belmont to collect donations to benefit the heading home organization we have collected donations of household items kitchen items bathroom items what you would basically need to help someone who's moving into an apartment for the first time i have in the past had the opportunity and the pleasure to assist  move and it was just such a wonderful experience i did it with my son when he was in fifth grade and fifth grade and you spend a day in an apartment and you're cleaning it yes setting  bag hang in the curtains stock in the kitchen get in the dishes put away and then the family comes and this is to first apartment they have been homeless in the transitional housing and they see all the work th students with the help of their parents have done and this is now their home as it was a tremendous opportunity and we have very proud it remax on a fund to be able to collect the donations of those household goods that will help benefit at least one if not more families as they move into more permanent housing so this is a great how and this helps women who have been victims of violence as well as women who have been homeless for other reasons and in our goal here too to instill a commitment in those in the community to help others we really appreciate you telling us about this so that's heading home and again we hope to have more information about this on our website which will be connected to one billion rising going forward and that will be belmont rising dot org and i thank  participate in and become committed to ending violence and we hope that men and women and we hope that there will be people like you who are who stepped up and helped them out welcome back to one billion rising belmont rising i'm tommy olsen i'm here with kendall seeley from the fred astaire dance studio very excited to have them this is our last segment of the program one billion rising says as you can see strike dance rise we took the dance literally so we went to fred astaire dance studio candle candle will introduce the group and show tutorial so maybe you can practice at home we're also giving away twenty roses and the roses have a little introductory special attached to them so you can come in for a free group class and private lesson we only have twenty so we want you to come down to the studio and support one billion rising we're going to have them here until sunday so please please come on by and grab your rose the first performance is actually going to be myself and roman we're going to show you a little bit of the  is a very loving lovely dance it's great for social dancing and we're going to show you a little bit of the syllabus so these are all things that you can learn at our studio and then take out with someone special so without further ado every day let me sho and the you thank you roman so that was a little bit of the foxtrot began it's a very social in and the next piece i want to introduce was made especially for a one billion rising so we're very proud of it  we can use dance to express emotion and heal from things and so we were trying to use that and keep that in mind for this particular piece so i'm going to introduce chris and sophie and i'll show you a little bit of choreography so these aren't steps that you would normally see out on a dance floor thank you all right so for the last part this is where we get to teach you guys a little bit of the basic foxtrot step so this is a great dance that you can do out socially and if you're going to follow along at home i'm going to ask all of my great instructors to come out so the first thing is john is always the leader on the dance floor so he's going to start with his left foot the lady is the follower so she's going to start with her right foot so far foxtrot basic the first thing is just to walking steps pretty simple so the man is going to start in the left lane the star on the right we're going to do to walk walk walk and then that's the first part this the second part is going to be a side and close side and close because we're going to try that again we're going to go back so we have some room all right the foxtrot basic is going to be to walk side close ready and walk  walk side and close god now the only thing that we need is some timing to go on with the music so the first two steps are going to be slow and the side steps going to be quick so we're going to go in slow slow quick slow quick quick i hope you enjoyed the little tutorial of course there's much more to learn that's just the basic stuff and i just want to reiterate that we're giving away twenty rows as if you come on down to the studio you want to support this amazing cause one billion rising you can come on down till sunday and grab your free introductory special and come and dance we hope you enjoyed the show and we want to thank tommy so much to thank you for joining us for one billion rising belmont rising this is our first opportunity to bring you a musical dance and also interviews were a little new at this so if it's a little rough we apologize but our goal is to engender a commitment in all of us to fight against the violence tour that happens to ward women one in three women being  victims of violence is not acceptable we all need to do our part we've heard from their eous people we hope to continue this both locally and with our friends from the saheli foundation but certainly you can contact us and and stacy you want to wrap up i want to thank everybody for tuning in and i just want to give a little bit of background on v day again that one billion rising at the fifteenth anniversary of a global movement  trying to educate people against about violence against women and to come up with a community solution a global felician to prevent it in the future and one of the things kendall said during her last performance there the one they choreographed was that art can heal and that's one of the tenets of this movement they have four core beliefs the first one being that art has the power to transform thinking and inspire people to act and another one is that local women best know about their communities need local women best know what their communities need and can become unstoppable leaders and that's part of what we want to be rising is that we want to be local fully into a global problem and i thank you again for tuning in and thank you to all our guests and thank you to tommy for organizing this and thank you to all have we have camera people who we who are you know very grateful to have here so thank you to everybody for helping us do this and we hope that we can inspire you to