by Carl Cheng, Online Associate
I have always considered myself as one of the more invisible members on staff working behind the scenes for most of One Billion Rising. A lot of my time was spent designing and updating and working on the back end to make sure things were working properly. But even so, I didn’t want the nature of the job to separate myself from really being a part of the campaign. As the campaign further developed, it just so happened that a big part of my job developed into helping many activists around the world with anything technical for the campaign and I was able to establish connections with so many amazing people. Every day, I found myself inspired by every person I came in contact with.
My OBR moment came on the day of, or technically the day before for me being based in New York. Seeing so many people rising before us was invigorating and I wasn’t able to stop the constant well of tears that were in my eyes that day. I found myself staying up until 3AM, constantly putting off my short nap because I kept refreshing to see all the new content coming in from the other side of the world. Throughout both days, I had more of these moments where I would see videos and photos pop up of people and risings that I have helped. There was the flashmob at Iguassu Falls in Brazil, there were the beautiful women with their radio show in Montreal, the dance party in Greece and the V-Day in Senegal. I just saw this web in my mind of dots connecting the world and in my own small way, I was able to support these groups and help them rise in their areas in the world.
On one day, all that work came together and manifested itself into such beauty.
When it came time for New York to rise, I found such pleasure in all the small things that morning – awaking with the sun or even selecting my outfit for the day because on that day, it represented being one of a billion coming together with one common goal on this historic day. I’m being a part of history. I’m helping MAKE history. I couldn’t let the rest of the world down so I splashed cold water on my face and channeled the adrenaline from the risings that came before to make sure that New York was going to rise big time.
