The 26th annual Take Back the Night march and rally takes place this coming Thursday, September 27 beginning with a rally and light refreshments in the College of New Caledonia atrium at 6 p.m.
In Prince George, Take Back the Night began in 1992 when a number of community agencies and groups came together to raise awareness about violence, to demand safe streets and communities, to ensure that women and children could walk safely on our streets and throughout our community no matter time of day or night and to collectively work for a society free from any kind of sexual or gender-based violence.
Following a welcoming to the traditional territory of the Lheidli T’enneh, rally emcee, Cassidy Shuvera from PG Elizabeth Fry Society, will introduce speakers including:
- Brenda Wilson – lost her sister Ramona on the Highway of Tears and is currently a Family Support Worker with Ministry of Public Safety & Solicitor General for families of murdered and missing Indigenous women
- Dawn Hemingway – UNBC social work professor, local activist and founding member Northern FIRE and the Women North Network
- Si Transken – UNBC social work professor, local activist and Artivist
To conclude the rally, the K’hastan Drummers will drum and sing marchers out of CNC to begin the march route alongside Hwy 97.
Gendered violence is an issue for everyone and ending it requires everyone’s involvement and commitment. All community members are invited to show their support by attending the 6 p.m. rally.
Following the rally, women and children will take to the streets to declare their right to walk freely and safely at night through the streets of Prince George.
Take Back the Night is celebrated worldwide to honour the memory of women who have not survived violence, to celebrate those who have survived and to demand an end to violence.
Women taking to the streets at night to protest violence originated in Europe in the early 1970s. In North America, the theme, Take Back the Night, was first introduced at a night time march held in San Francisco in 1978. That same year, Canadian women also took to the streets when an ad-hoc group called the Fly-By-Night Collective organized a march in Vancouver.
