The action:

 

If you want to raise awareness on an issue in your local community, there is no better way to catch the attention than surprise people. Therefore, with the aim to celebrate the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, that is being celebrated on 25th of November, some participants of the GlobaLab project from Spain decided to dress up the most important monuments in their city (read: the statues small enough that the XXXXL t-shirts could fit J ).

During the preparation phase, the participants had to design and print the t-shirts, inform the police that this action will happen, so it will not be considered as an act of vandalism, and get the team for the action day.

The action started before the sun raise, when the participants got out on the streets to dress up the statues. It is not the easiest job, really… Quite often they had to cut the t-shirts, and sew them again on the statues, and some of them were not that accessible. Therefore, you need to always bring with you some materials and team to help.

In this way, the participants managed to get their city changed for one day. Six statues of the city have been wearing the T-Shirt with the message:

 

BEFORE GENDER BASED VIOLENCE DO NOT MAKE YOURSELF THE STATUE.

 

Although gender based violence is exercised in the intimate space, it reflects a social injustice of which we are all participants and which is the responsibility of each one of us. Therefore, with this campaign the participants wanted to motivate the local community to take an active role, when they learn about the cases of violence, and not to be a statue, under which we understand all the bystanders.

To encourage Lorca to interact with the initiative and take a stand against gender violence, the participanbts of the GlobaLab project also launched a contest. They asked people to take a photo with one of the statues dressed in the shirt and upload it to Facebook or Twitter with the hashtag #notehagaslaestatua which means “Don´t make yourself a statue”. Among all the photos we draw a cool t-shirt with our motto for this day.

Now it's your turn! Do not make yourself the statue today and every day of the year!