Hello everyone, welcome to Festi-Ball 2020 and thank you all for coming.
Since most of you here today are new to my charity ball event, I thought I would just tell you a little bit about what brings us here today. At this point, I’d like to say that some things I will discuss and that will be shown on the screen is going to be difficult and potentially triggering. If you need to step outside then please do! Just be mindful if you can of other people’s listening and viewing.
I have been aware of sexual harassment as far back as I can remember. When I was fourteen, we were asked to write an essay about a topic we were passionate about – mine was about how wrong street harassment was. Although, at the time, sexual misconduct felt normalised and accepted by society at large, including women. We all seemed to bitch and joke about it and yet accept it as an inevitable part of our lives. It wasn’t until I was raped at university that I would realise that we cannot accept any sexual misconduct. Despite being in some sort of denial for a year and a half after it happened, I started thinking about and getting involved in activism throughout the rest of my university career. I researched further education programmes, I went to protests, I joined women’s groups, I gave speeches and I organised awareness events.
Once university came to an end, I felt a bit lost. I was frustrated about being unable to get a job in charity work and I didn’t really know how I was possibly going to continue healing without the resources, network and time available to be an activist. Luckily for me, I was inspired to organise something on my own and was given a gentle nudge by my friend to make the idea a reality. My first charity ball, just over a year ago now, was a huge success. We had a series of speakers, including me and I read a poem that I hadn’t ever shared with anyone before – turns out it was quite good and its now been published online. I raised over £2,000 for Rape Crisis England and Wales and everyone enjoyed the evening.
And now we are here… my second charity ball, first film festival event and first screening of a film I have been making with my Dad. It’s quite a different event to last year but I am hoping it will be just as successful, if not more! There are a few details staying the same, we have a raffle later on in the evening and I will be reading a second poem shortly. The reason we are here, still ultimately stays the same. We are here to learn, to think about things we might not have thought about before and to raise money for a charity that is underfunded yet vitally important. The last few years have been a series of waiting lists for me and next week, I am about to be put on another one in London. Thankfully, through my employer, I am getting some help in the meantime and now, more than ever, I realise how necessary the work of specialist support charities are. It’s a bit crazy, when I wrote my poem – Letting Go – it felt like I was making leaps and strides in my recovery and I truly believed it was the beginning of letting go. The poem came to me after my last session with the Sexual Assault Referral Centre – who are here today! I felt empowered in my recovery and I thought that all the major hurdles had been overcome and my new life in London was about to begin which I was hopeful would completely change me. Over the last few months, this feeling began to fade. London presented new challenges that I hadn’t expected such as taking the tube in rush hour. I thought I had used up all the tears I had to give about what happened. Alas, there were more. Sometimes they were just as powerful as they had been in the past. They could last days. I’ve missed work, cried in work and felt utterly hopeless. Only a few weeks ago, I had my first visible panic on the tube. Tears streamed down my face and my body trembled harder than it ever had before. I spoke to my Dad about my poem, telling him that I no longer felt like I could stand here and read the words about letting go. It simply didn’t feel true anymore. My Dad suggested I changed it to trying to let go. So this is what I have done but miraculously, with the help of the most lovely woman in work, hope has been restored, belief in myself has started to take up more space than fear amongst other things and I feel as though I am back on track in my recovery and letting go. I know there is a lot of work to do and it will be a lifelong process but its these positive feelings and the support of some truly wonderful human beings in my life that keeps me here and keeps me going. The work I have done in just two sessions with my counsellor has helped me not only take the tube equipped with the tools to tame the panic but to actually enjoy my commute and she has helped me change the picture I have in my head about coming back to Cardiff. Every survivor needs the support to develop their own survival kit, this is why we are raising money for an umbrella organisation – Rape Crisis England and Wales – who provided over 650,000 sessions of support last year.
I don’t feel like I need to say much more, I think the film festival will give us plenty to think about and to discuss tonight. So I will read my poem and then we can start watching these amazing films.
Since most of you here today are new to my charity ball event, I thought I would just tell you a little bit about what brings us here today. At this point, I’d like to say that some things I will discuss and that will be shown on the screen is going to be difficult and potentially triggering. If you need to step outside then please do! Just be mindful if you can of other people’s listening and viewing.
I have been aware of sexual harassment as far back as I can remember. When I was fourteen, we were asked to write an essay about a topic we were passionate about – mine was about how wrong street harassment was. Although, at the time, sexual misconduct felt normalised and accepted by society at large, including women. We all seemed to bitch and joke about it and yet accept it as an inevitable part of our lives. It wasn’t until I was raped at university that I would realise that we cannot accept any sexual misconduct. Despite being in some sort of denial for a year and a half after it happened, I started thinking about and getting involved in activism throughout the rest of my university career. I researched further education programmes, I went to protests, I joined women’s groups, I gave speeches and I organised awareness events.
Once university came to an end, I felt a bit lost. I was frustrated about being unable to get a job in charity work and I didn’t really know how I was possibly going to continue healing without the resources, network and time available to be an activist. Luckily for me, I was inspired to organise something on my own and was given a gentle nudge by my friend to make the idea a reality. My first charity ball, just over a year ago now, was a huge success. We had a series of speakers, including me and I read a poem that I hadn’t ever shared with anyone before – turns out it was quite good and its now been published online. I raised over £2,000 for Rape Crisis England and Wales and everyone enjoyed the evening.
And now we are here… my second charity ball, first film festival event and first screening of a film I have been making with my Dad. It’s quite a different event to last year but I am hoping it will be just as successful, if not more! There are a few details staying the same, we have a raffle later on in the evening and I will be reading a second poem shortly. The reason we are here, still ultimately stays the same. We are here to learn, to think about things we might not have thought about before and to raise money for a charity that is underfunded yet vitally important. The last few years have been a series of waiting lists for me and next week, I am about to be put on another one in London. Thankfully, through my employer, I am getting some help in the meantime and now, more than ever, I realise how necessary the work of specialist support charities are. It’s a bit crazy, when I wrote my poem – Letting Go – it felt like I was making leaps and strides in my recovery and I truly believed it was the beginning of letting go. The poem came to me after my last session with the Sexual Assault Referral Centre – who are here today! I felt empowered in my recovery and I thought that all the major hurdles had been overcome and my new life in London was about to begin which I was hopeful would completely change me. Over the last few months, this feeling began to fade. London presented new challenges that I hadn’t expected such as taking the tube in rush hour. I thought I had used up all the tears I had to give about what happened. Alas, there were more. Sometimes they were just as powerful as they had been in the past. They could last days. I’ve missed work, cried in work and felt utterly hopeless. Only a few weeks ago, I had my first visible panic on the tube. Tears streamed down my face and my body trembled harder than it ever had before. I spoke to my Dad about my poem, telling him that I no longer felt like I could stand here and read the words about letting go. It simply didn’t feel true anymore. My Dad suggested I changed it to trying to let go. So this is what I have done but miraculously, with the help of the most lovely woman in work, hope has been restored, belief in myself has started to take up more space than fear amongst other things and I feel as though I am back on track in my recovery and letting go. I know there is a lot of work to do and it will be a lifelong process but its these positive feelings and the support of some truly wonderful human beings in my life that keeps me here and keeps me going. The work I have done in just two sessions with my counsellor has helped me not only take the tube equipped with the tools to tame the panic but to actually enjoy my commute and she has helped me change the picture I have in my head about coming back to Cardiff. Every survivor needs the support to develop their own survival kit, this is why we are raising money for an umbrella organisation – Rape Crisis England and Wales – who provided over 650,000 sessions of support last year.
I don’t feel like I need to say much more, I think the film festival will give us plenty to think about and to discuss tonight. So I will read my poem and then we can start watching these amazing films.
