Students Rally at Take Back the Night Event

By Amanda Cheek, News Editor

On Oct. 6, the Take Back the Night Rally and March will occur as a special event within Turn Off the Violence Week, on the North Plaza from 7:30 – 10 p.m.

The event is a peaceful gathering on the North Plaza promoting an end to sexual and domestic violence, and is symbolic of a safe haven for all, according to the Sexual Assault Services website, http://sas.gmu.edu.

“Take Back the Night is a way for students to come together and show their support to ending sexual assault and abuse,” said Lauren Heath, a senior psychology major and women and gender studies minor.

Heath is a member of the Feminist Student Organization and a student staffer at the Women and Gender Studies Center.

Preceding the event will be a free Yoga YES! session in the North Plaza. YES! Yoga is Yoga to Empower Yourself, to enhance personal power, identity and self-esteem, according to the Sexual Assault Services website.

The session will involve stretching, dancing and sound, and will be hosted by Yoga teachers Dawn Curtis, Felicity Boyer and Mandy Shaver.

This year’s speakers include, Indira Hernard from the D.C. Rape Crisis Center, a Women’s Studies professor at Georgetown and George Washington University and Elizabeth Prescott, a poet from the Washington, D.C. feminist poetry collective.

Representatives from Mason’s Sexual Assault Services and counseling center will also speak.

A performance by the Mason student group Loving Her Fiercely will also be part of the event.

Following these events will be a candlelight march through George Mason University’s dormitories.

A catered reception will follow the completed march, in the Women and Gender Studies Center located in room 240K in the Johnson Center.

The event is co-sponsored by the Feminist Student Organization, Women and Gender Studies and Sexual Assault Services.

“It’s a powerful, eye-opening experience, which everyone should attend,” said Heath.

For more information, visit http://www.takebackthenight.org.