BLANK NOISE ACTION HEROES CAMPAIGN/ ONLINE

Last year just before March 8, International Women's Day, the Blank Noise Project set up a blog-a-thon, linking all of you and many other readers not on our mailing list, to each other through a particularly sensitive and private subject - the re-telling of experiences of street sexual harassment. We thought the solidarity in numbers, the anonymity the Internet offers and the significance of the day itself might allow some people to tell stories they had never told before. We expected some thoughtful stories, some provocative ones, some that would disturb and stay with us, perhaps forever.

But we did not expect over 240 deeply personal testimonials to come rushing out. We did not expect 131 comments on a single post. We did not expect the media to pick it up the way they did, with coverage ranging from ragional to international.

This March 8, we're hoping to take the journey begun last year one step forward. We've heard each other's testimonials, now let's share each other's actions. On March 8, 2007, The Blank Noise Project launches an actionhero website which collects no testimonials, no stories of bit-back hurt, no stories of indifferent onlookers.

Instead this space will launch with the stories of action plans. Give us your strategies. Your interventions. The time when you subverted a situation, flipped it on its head and gave the perpetrator no chance but to stop what he was doing. Give us your success story. Tell us which action hero you are. We will post strategies and interventions from eight countries up on our brand new space on International Women's Day.

Like Atreyee Day, who described an effective way she’d coped in Kolkata, with this incident.

The blog isn't launched yet. It will be when you send in your strategies and those that you've
been able to collect.

But essentially, we're asking for:
How different women have coped with street sexual harassment/ or dealt with it by turning the tables around. In Atreyee's case the man in question shifted from being a lewd perpetrator to someone a bit more vulnerable, who shared his childhood instead - and it happened because
1. She looked beyond the harassment
2. She developed her own strategy
Tell us about the situation that didn't cow you down. Which action hero are you? Send us a
post marked 'action hero' to blurtblanknoise@gmail.com and include a brief description of
which Action Hero you see yourself as.

We're asking for the description of any circumstance you’ve encountered that you haven’t
felt cowed down or overwhelmed by; one in which you perhaps spontaneously ‘strategised’ to
overcome harassment. We're asking for which Action Hero you relate to; it could be one
specific to your culture... it could be G-Girl. We're asking for a photograph of you – we won't
put up your name if you don't want it up. Send us an audio clip if you can – that'd be perfect.

We're also looking for volunteers to help on this project:

1. Technical support to construct the website
2. Volunteers to collect strategies from those who cannot access the Internet or cannot write: either writing down what they say, translating and/or recording audio (if anyone has a problem accessing recording equipment, we can help)
3. Media outreach

Please email us if you can think you can help out: this is a two-month project only and we could do with all hands on board! Especially with reaching out to people who might not be on the Internet or able to write....

We will have lots more details for you when you email blurtblanknoise@gmail.com , the words "march 8 volunteer" in the subject line.

Thankyou

Blank Noise Team