“One billion women being violated is an atrocity; one billion women dancing is a revolution.”

Caiti Barendregt-Brown, coordinator of public education and outreach at the Sexual Assault Centre London, quoted the One Billion Rising motto.

On February 14, women, men, adults and children around the world will be united by dance to fight violence against women.

“Everyone understands movement, body movement,” said Mike Kayla, Originality Never Ends (O.N.E.) Hip Hop Studio director. “Language can be a barrier, but when you do dance it's kind of like everyone understands it.”

Flash mobs of people around the world will be rising to “Break The Chain” of “barriers around this issues; I think it's breaking stereotypes of what a feminist is or what a woman who's experienced and survived sexual assault looks like,” said Barendregt- Brown.

“Break The Chain” is the name of the song and dance posted on onebillionrising.org with a stepby- step video of how to do it so the world can rise together.

Local One Billion Rising events begin at 4 p.m. on February 14 at Citi Plaza. At 5:30 p.m., O.N.E. Hip Hop Studio, among many other Londoners and community organizations involved in the rehearsed flash mob dance, will rise to the occasion.

Community members are proud to have worked together to coordinate the day's events. “What has been really beautiful about this event is that there hasn't been one organization doing all the organizing around this,” said Barendregt-Brown.

She is astounded with the amount of community support she has seen throughout planning for the events.

“It hasn't required a lot of work; the community has really risen on its own.”

While much of the community is showing their support for stopping violence against women, Barendregt-Brown said a lot of people are still misinformed about the issue.

“We seem to fight the same fight in and out, and people tell us regularly that women's ‘lib' is not needed anymore and that these issues aren't happening, and they are! And I think what is going to happen, what I'm hoping is going to happen with this event, is that it's going to frame the issue of violence against women in a way that is accessible to the community at large. But I'm hoping that this event brings the community together to frame this issue in a way that we can say, ‘It's happening but we're rising against it.'”

“We can't stop it unless we're aware of it,” added Shelley Yeo, director of transitional and community programs and services at Women's Community House. “It's a huge issue and it's complex. As communities, smaller communities, organizations, we need to set up plans on how we're now going to take this forward and do something about it.”

Barendregt-Brown said she thinks One Billion Rising is a great start on the action.

“Somebody said to me once that you don't know your own strength until you have no choice but to be strong. I think that this is not a negative event; this is about coming together and celebrating the fact that we have numbers, power in numbers. So this event in particular is not going to require too much courage I think it's going to require a lot of joy.”

But the fact that this is all happening on the day Cupid strikes cannot be overlooked.

“Valentine's Day is a day for relationships,” said Barendregt- Brown. “I think that it is really important to acknowledge the health of our relationships on that day and how we're conducting our relationships. It's not even just our romantic ones but our friendships and our family relations.”

Liddy Hodgins is a member of O.N.E. Hip Hop studio who is participating in the event. She said she hopes to be able to communicate and express herself through her moves and is participating for one simple reason: “One person can make a change in the world and it doesn't matter who you are, anyone can do it.”

For more information about One Billion Rising, check out onebillionrising.org.