Memory March - Sunday March 25th, 2 pm, Crab Park, Vancouver, B.C.
GLOBAL WOMEN'S MEMORIAL SOCIETY
Silent March is a Voice
for Murdered Women
Vancouver, March 8, 2007--Over 200 women and girls
are murdered in Canada each year. Each death is an inexcusable crime, and the
death toll destroys the fabric of our society. Activist Gwynne Hunt draws
attention to the plight of women and girls by gathering their names and asking
individuals to remember, grieve, and work for change. On Sunday, March 25th,
starting at 2:00pm in Crab Park, Hunt has organized The Memory March, a silent
walk and ceremony in remembrance of murdered and missing women in Canada.
The march will start from the Missing Women*s Memorial in Crab Park at the foot
of Main Street, and go to the women's monument, Marker of Change, in Thornton
Park at Main Street and Terminal Avenue. In the circle of Marker of Change,
participants will light 3,000 candles in memory of the women and girls we have
lost to violence.
They will also wear the names of the almost 3000 murdered women and children
remembered on the Facing the Horror: the Femicide List. Mary Billy began the
Femicide List after the December 1989 Montreal Massacre. The list contains many
of the names of women and children murdered
across Canada since then. Gwynne Hunt assumed responsibility for the list since
2005.
A special ceremony will be held at Crab Park by Squamish First Nations elder
Audrey Rivers. A candle brought from the missing women's trial in New
Westminster will be lit and placed in front of the Missing Women's Memorial
boulder before the walk.
Marchers are encouraged to bring flowers and matches. The march will be
videotaped for use in a follow-up awareness campaign.
The Memory March is sponsored by Art Matters Society, a charitable organization
based in Abbotsford, put together to produce the Fraser Valley Fringe Theatre
Festival; they create live, un-juried theatre. One of the Society's mandates is
to produce shows that help stop violence in the community. Gwynne Hunt is the
Artistic Director. Gwynne's special focus is creating political theatre to help
stop violence against women. In 1981, a fifteen year old family friend, Verna,
went missing. She was never found. This tragic experience changed Gwynne's life.
WHAT: The Memory March
WHEN: March 25, 2007 @ 2:00pm
WHERE: Crab Park, Missing Women*s Memorial, Vancouver, BC
For more information, please contact:
Gwynne Hunt: Phone: 604-859-2407
E-mail:
inkslinger@shaw.ca