The people of Derry showed up in the thousands to stand shoulder to shoulder at the rally for women’s safety in the city.
‘This is the start of something and everyone who came here tonight is involved in the movement’, one of the speakers at a rally for women’s safety said in reaction to a huge turnout at the event. Video by Ben Kennedy.
‘This is the start of something and everyone who came here tonight is involved in the movement’, one of the speakers at a rally for women’s safety said in reaction to a huge turnout at the event. Video by Ben Kennedy.
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00:00I'm Bethany Moore and I'm an activist with Alliance for Choice Dairy.
00:12It feels really overwhelming to talk about the turnout of this event and the
00:16people of dairy really showed up after the four recent attacks against women in
00:20our city. We knew that this was going to be well attended because in times of
00:24crisis dairy people really come together. I was just extremely moved to
00:30see the size of the crowd and I'm really glad and the people showed up for you
00:34know the women, the girls, the marginalized people of dairy and as I
00:38said in my speech earlier this is the start of something and everyone who came
00:42here tonight is now involved in the movement and now has a part to play and
00:46we hope that they will.
00:50Yeah so I am Cassie Jane Blackley I'm from Foil Women's Information Network.
01:01It's been an amazing turnout we've had over I'd say a thousand people I heard
01:05on it on the news earlier and men, women, everyone has come together in
01:10solidarity for the event tonight.
01:14Do you think the message got across?
01:17I think so I think I think there was a joint message across all the speakers
01:21tonight that we need short-term action, we need to feel safer in our streets now,
01:25we need to feel confident in ourselves now and then a commitment to long-term
01:29systemic change that we all desperately need and that the main point that we
01:34want to bring across is you know the measures that we're asking to be put in
01:37place for women are going to benefit everyone in society, women, men,
01:41minorities and like any marginalised group is going to benefit from changes
01:46in our community.
01:50Mark H. Durkan, SDLP MLA for Foil.
01:59Well it's very heartening to see such a good strong turnout here in Derry
02:04tonight I think people have been blown away by how many people have come out
02:07and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the women of Derry, the women of Northern
02:12Ireland and women across the world who have subjected to violence, to attack and
02:18to fear of violence every day. It's important that people do take this stand
02:23I think it's particularly important that men take this stand as well. We have to
02:28do so much to change behaviours and that starts by changing attitudes.
02:34I'm Jim Duffy, I live in Derry. My name is Bridie Williams, I live in Derry as well.
02:48I thought it was very powerful to see men and women gather because it's
02:56horrible what's going on and hearing on the news all the time about all the
03:00women yeah and it was nice to see it was a good atmosphere. Yeah it was
03:05important to see politicians talking about it as well. I think Derry as a
03:10community is very powerful as well and stick up for what's right when they can.