Hawthorne brings us a pickup truck-driving, Ruger-packing heroine who takes to the Colorado woods for solitude, only to be attacked by a pack of mythological fae-creatures.
Look for the book at Boulder Bookstore and online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and www.KevinFury.com.
The month of November is officially Zonta Says No month in Boulder and around the world. Zonta Foothills Club of Boulder County is taking this effort very seriously and working hard with local organizations to help fight sexual violence.
“Zonta Says NO to Violence Against Women” is a Zonta International campaign to raise awareness of and increase actions to end violence against women and girls around the world. It begins in November and runs through December 10 ending with the culmination of the16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence which is commemorated by the United Nations. This year we are working with Boulder High School, the Fairview High School women's basketball team, Moving the End Sexual Assault (MESA), The CU Center for Gender Studies and Abby's Voice to spread the word.
To support ZSN, which began in November, 2012, Zonta clubs and districts around the world serve and advocate against violence against women and girls in their local communities. It also highlights Zonta International’s ongoing efforts to end violence against women and girls through the Zonta International Strategies to End Violence against Women (ZISVAW) program and through Zonta’s partnerships with the United Nations and its agencies.
So with the help of the Boulder High School Pantherz Z Club we kicked off our Zonta Says NO campaign with a PantherZ TV spot that our Z Club produced to tell their students body about this campaign. The girls painted shirts, gather for the production and then entered it into the school's announcements.(Visit https://youtu.be/O2-jHUirH94)
This launched our next school activity at Boulder High School's last home football game against Montbello High School. We stood in the rain wearing orange to remind everyone that October was Domestic Violence Awareness Month and November is ZONTA SAYS NO TO VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN month.
Our Boulder High School Pantherz Z Club also created and hung Silent Witness silhouettes. Each black felt silhouette has a victim's tragic story and they hang on the library windows off the Boulder High School central courtyard where students could see read from both inside and outside the school. There are also resources about relationships and community support on display for students who may need help.
On Thursday, November 12 spent the day spreading the world against violence. At our business meeting we were inspired by speakers Janine D’Anniballe and Kathy Robertson. Janine is a nationally recognized trauma expert, Director of Access, Emergency, and Community Services at Mental Health Partners and former Executive Director of Moving to End Sexual Assault (MESA), the rape crisis center in Boulder, Colorado. Kathy Robertson co-founded Abby’s Voice, after the murder of their daughter Abigail Robertson who was stalked and harassed by an ex-boyfriend for months prior to her death. Kathy travels to college campuses and local high schools throughout Colorado talking to groups about healthy relationships.
To end the day we marched in unison with The CU Gender Justice League and MESA to spread say that Boulder Says “No” throughout the campus and surrounding neighborhoods.
The last element of our campaign will be at Fairview High School where we will be creating silhouettes with the girls of the school's four basketball teams. These will be hung outside the school gym to communicate the team’s voice against violence. These will be on display in the large front hall to be seen during the school's Fairview Festival, a large tournament sponsored for the school which is attended by teams from all over the Front Range.
We live in a world where women live in constant danger. It’s a harsh reality to learn that: 1 in 3 women around the world will experience physical/sexual violence by a partner … About 140M women suffer from female genital mutilation/cutting. Three million girls a year are at risk … Globally, 38% of all murdered women were killed by their intimate partners … Women are 2-4 times more likely than men to become infected with HIV during intercourse. Forced sex or rape increases this risk … More than 64 million girls worldwide are child brides … Women and girls represent 55 percent of the estimated 20.9 million victims of forced labor worldwide … Women and girls represent 98 percent of the estimated 4.5 million forced into sexual exploitation.
Zonta Foothills Club of Boulder County joins in fighting this problem that is ruining the lives of women and girls … We will wear orange throughout November in support of “Zonta Says NO to Violence Against Women” a Zonta International campaign to raise awareness of and increase actions to end violence against women and girls. “We believe that sustainable prevention requires an understanding of the root causes and the use of multiple complementary strategies operating on individual, relationship, and the community and society levels, starting early in life during childhood, continuing in the schools and continuing during adulthood,” explains Maria Jose, Landeira Oestergaard Zonta International President.
Sexual violence is one of the most pervasive human rights violations and a global epidemic. It knows no national or cultural barriers and affects millions of women and girls in peacetime and conflict. It includes physical and sexual violence, and harmful practices such as rape, female genital cutting and human trafficking. Violence against women and girls threatens countries, inhibits economic progress, and prevents women from contributing to their community and creating better lives for themselves and their families. In our own backyards violence against women is hidden in the most unsuspecting places, on our streets, in our schools, or maybe even in a right in your neighborhood. In Colorado 1 in 4 women will experience sexual assault in their lifetime. Whether it is rape, child sexual assault, dating or domestic violence incest, human trafficking, it is in all strata of our society. But yet it is estimated that under 10% of sexual assaults are actually reported to police.
As a community, Boulder County can only reverse this trend if we advocate for programs that educate and lay the ground work for change. Zonta Foothills Club of Boulder County salutes groups in our community like Moving to End Sexual Assault (MESA), Abby’s Voice, Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Program (SANE), St. Vrain Safe Shelter and CU Women and Gender Studies Program and others who work with us to address reverse this epidemic. Their efforts must be recognized in our community.
Together we are saying that we can no longer tolerate exploitation of women and that college campuses must not look the other way to traditions of drinking, hazing and sexual exploitation. As a community we are reaching out to men, women and children to educate and establish an understanding the intricate web of violence. Men and boys must be empowered to speak with a unified voice making violence not just a women’s problem but broader societal issue. Zonta Foothills Club of Boulder County asks you to recruit you spouse, your brother, your neighbor or your son…inform them of the facts surrounding this social tragedy urge them to be an agent for change for all of our daughters.
To learn more visit http://www.zontafoothills.org/.
