Over the years, One Billion Rising campaigns have brought deeper into focus the intersectional issues of poverty, the environment, economic violence and other factors that cause and sustain the continuing violence towards women and girls (cisgender, transgender, and those who hold fluid identities that are subject to gender based violence). One Billion Rising: Solidarity initiatives in 2018 continued to see other movements coming together to address the issue of how climate change and environmental plunder aggravate the situation of women, especially in developing countries and in poor communities around the world. People all over the world joined the Risings to demand and end to violence against women and girls, by looking at policies that pillage, devastate and destroy the environment in the name of “development”. Developmental aggression and global ecological disasters directly related to corporate expansion, capitalist greed, unending extraction, production, over consumption and waste, and how these forces directly affect women and girls, became the primary focus of many Risings. The global climate crisis continues to affect communities around the world, but women and girls suffer the most as a result of long term loss of livelihood, forced migration, trafficking and other climate related conflicts. Indigenous populations everywhere have also suffered gravely – displaced and forced to flee and relocate – making them the world’s first climate refugees.

Rising for Climate Justice and Mother Earth is a call for justice against the aggressive greed and global exploitation of nature and people. It is a call to restore dignity, integrity and respect towards Mother Earth and to all people of the world, particularly women and girls, who have been equally violated by policies and programs that cause environmental degradation.

Examples of Risings for Climate Justice and Mother Earth:

TAMERA is a school and research center in Portugal, focused on creating a realistic utopia.

The founding thought was to develop a non-violent life model for cooperation between human being, animal and nature.  The ecological and technological research of Tamera includes the implementation of a retention landscape for the healing of water and nature, as well as a model for regional autonomy in energy and food. Through the Global Campus and the Terra Nova School they work within a global network on the social, ecological and ethical foundations for a new Earth – Terra Nova.

TAMERA has been doing One Billion Rising events every year since 2014 – to RISE FOR MOTHER EARTH.

In 2017 and 2018, they have held a gathering called “Defending the Sacred” – with international activists from around the world, including OBR Global Director Monique Wilson. One Billion Rising is a global movement partner of the “Defend The Sacred” planetary movement created at the gathering

Defend The Sacred Gathering Vision:

“In these decisive times we stand up to protect life. Along with millions of people around the planet we defend the sacred wherever we are. From the depth of our being comes a NO against the insanity of this world. No to any violence. No to the destruction of nature and the exploitation of people. No to a system based on injustice, racism and war. No to all hypocrisy and lies.

For our NO to succeed, we have to know what we say YES to. For life to win, the global resistance needs to unify around a common positive aim for the future. We need a realistic vision for post-capitalism – a love-based, regenerative, nonviolent world – that will allow millions to divest from the old system and create a new one. There’s enormous potential in coming together and focusing the many movements into a common force for system change.”

Defend the Sacred + One Billion Rising: Bringing Movements Together

Monique Wilson, Global Director of One Billion Rising, spoke at Defend the Sacred: International Gathering in Tamera in Odeceixe on 12 August 2017, to stop the planned oil drilling off Portugal’s coast. There, a global community used their bodies for an aerial art action, dancing in solidarity to end the violence against women and Mother Earth.

At the RISING FOR MOTHER EARTH gathering, international activists, local communities and the Tamera community danced the OBR global theme “BREAK THE CHAIN” in the defense of the water, to demand and end to environmental destruction, and as a celebration of global solidarity:

Watch the TAMERA ONE BILLION RISING – RISE FOR MOTHER EARTH ACTION– AS PART OF THE DEFEND THE SACRED GATHERING, 12 August 2017:

Watch Monique’s full speech in the “Defend The Sacred” women’s panel on the Feminine Revolution.

Monique talks about One Billion Rising Revolution and why we are Rising in solidarity to end violence against women and girls. Joining her on the panel are Sabine Lichenfels (Tamera Co-Founder, Theologian, Activist speaking about love, sexuality and power in political action) and Ati Quigua (Colombian Indigenous Leader, speaking about Feminine Wisdom, Indigenous roots and a vision for healing in Colombia)

Watch the video of the aerial art action: Não ao Furo! Sim ao Futuro – No to oil drilling in Portugal!

The gathering gave rise to powerful inspirations. International activists created a manifesto on how a growing global community can stand up for life, water and a future worth living.

SIGN UP for the Defend the Sacred News Alerts for updates on the growing the global alliance.

See the Defend the Sacred Manifesto at http://defendthesacred.tamera.org

In 2018, Monique once again joined the “Defend The Sacred” gathering at Tamera with 80 other international activists, which included indigenous leaders from Standing Rock, Columbia and Peru, as well as artists, peace builders and grassroots community leaders from around the world – strengthening the commitment of One Billion Rising to the global manifesto envisioned in 2017 through sharing, long term envisioning and planning . The 2018 gathering once again involved an aerial action to Rise to Defend the Sacred and to say NO to the oil drilling on Portuguese waters. At the 2018 gathering, global activists once more danced “Break The Chain” as a commitment to their global collective Rising in Solidarity as a planetary community.