GANDA Dance with One Billion Rising for V-Day 2013

February 14 this year wasn't just the popular holiday Valentine's Day but it was also the day marked out for One Billion Rising (OBR), a worldwide protest calling for an end to violence against women. While the local gathering was organized by GABRIELA, a group that advocates the continued cause of women's rights in the Philippines together with the UP Department for Women's Studies, one of the notable groups that joined this year's protest was GANDA Filipinas, a group that fights for transgender women's rights.

This year's OBR involved over 200 countries and was one of the largest mass protest actions organized to stop violence again women. And GANDA's participation has already garnered the attention of publications like Gay Star News and even The Advocate.

OBR was originally organized by Eve Ensler, the women behind the Vagina Monologues. 2013 marks the 15th year of V-Day of which One Billion Rising is meant to be "an appreciation, amplification, and escalation" of this movement. OBR specifically celebrated the event through dance as a way to help wake up the global community to the importance of their cause.

"Transgender women are no stranger to violence as the yearly statistics of the Transgender Day of Remembrance demonstrate," said Naomi Fontanos co-founder of GANDA Filipinas. "We are rising together because it is in our connectedness, in our stomping feet and uncontrollable hips that the path and energy will be created to bring in a new world. We will galvanize the will and the passion of everyone rising around the world to create change."

For more information about GANDA Filipinas, you can visit their official Facebook page.

Quotes in this post were derived from the previously linked article by Gay Star News. 
Images in this post are courtesy of Naomi Fontanos of GANDA Filipinas.