Ready to Rise? Join One Billion Rising 2021: Rising Gardens

Rising Gardens is a defiant creative call for revival, restoration and transformation. Gardens as a compassionate call for justice – because one of the greatest injustices of our time has been the destruction and eradication of Mother Earth, parallel to the ongoing and escalating gender-based violence.

Ready to RISE, GARDEN, RESIST? Visit OneBillionRising.org

The Covid-19 pandemic has rapidly blown open the destructive veins of neoliberalism, capitalism, racism, fascism and patriarchy, revealing violent and broken systems that have been forced upon us for far too long. The majority of people who are dying are those who have been historically exploited, oppressed, marginalized and discriminated against because of race, gender, class, caste. The sacred connection that Indigenous communities hold with the land has been violated through colonization, broken treaties, and continuous human rights violations. Across the planet, the majority of front line workers, health care workers, home care workers, domestic workers, and farmworkers are women. Like the Earth, they are the least valued and protected.

One Billion Rising Global Coordinators have begun to launch the 2021 Rising Gardens campaign globally in India, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Mexico, Eswatini, Malawi, Nigeria and Japan. (Read about their risings by clicking on the country name above and it will take you to their blog post.)

We RISE to value, protect and uplift those who are doing essential work. We RISE for the Earth, which is the most essential to all life. We call on everyone around the world to RISE in honor and celebration of our women workers, and to create and grow RISING GARDENS.

WHY RISING GARDENS? Gardens remind us of our enduring connection to life, to each other and to Earth, which compels us to do everything in our power to protect and nurture life and all that is sacred without doing harm. The cultivation of plant life is also a means for survival. Growing food in a garden organically – be it your own indoor garden or a community garden – allows you to feed yourself and your community.

Maintaining a garden is an act of resistance because it does the opposite of what the capitalist machinery does – it connects people and communities with the Earth. To grow one’s own food, to grow beauty and life – is revolutionary in this age of ecological, environmental, societal, spiritual collapse. Tending to a garden, like nurturing our own communities, requires patience, creativity, love, care, attentiveness, presence, diligence, mindfulness and commitment. Gardening centralizes growing and giving, it is not about taking or acquiring.

To care for a garden – to nurture it to bloom and grow – deepens our relationship to Mother Earth

We cannot keep the ongoing extraction of women’s labour and earth’s produce, with no gratitude to both. We must honor and protect the Earth and women in order for any future life to exist.

Raise the Vibration with your hands and bodies. RISE FOR WOMEN AND MOTHER EARTH.

JOIN OBR! Learn more about the campaign
MEET the OBR Global Coordinators
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VIEW OBR 2021 Posters from Around the Globe

RISING DURING 16 DAYS OF ACTIVISM
(25 NOVEMBER – 10 DECEMBER)

From 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, to 10 December, Human Rights Day, 16 DAYS OF ACTIVISM against Gender-Based Violence Campaign is a time to RISE to end violence against all women and girls (cisgender and transgender and those who hold fluid identities.)

In conjunction with 16 Days of Activism (and in some cases extending to 18 December/ International Migrants Day) coordinators in Australia, Austria, Cambodia, Croatia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Fiji, Guatemala, Indonesia, Jamaica, Myanmar, Rwanda,Taiwan, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and United States of America are launching Rising Gardens 2021, harnessing the global energy of 16 Days as they ready for global One Billion Rising events in February and bringing the issue of gender based violence front and center in their communities. OBR coordinators use the momentum to further the seeds of their campaign and bring the issues of violence against women and the many ways this has worsened and been informed by the Covid-19 crisis and destructive veins of neoliberalism, capitalism, and racism.

Have questions about how you can do a One Billion Rising events in your community?
Reply to this email with your questions including your city/town and our team will be in touch.