On Monday September 29, Stirling residents, students, and anyone concerned for women and non-binary people’s safety, marched from Stirling Castle to Stirling Rugby Club, in Stirling’s first Reclaim The Night march since 2018.
Brig spoke to the event organisers and attendees about why the event has returned, and why it has to return again.
Ellie Hammond, Stirling University’s Vice President for Communities, organised the event. Her campaign for VP Communities had a focus on gender-based violence, and told us how the event re-emerged after stopping in 2018.
She said: “There was a Reclaim The Night march in Stirling that was organised by the Forth Valley Rape Crisis centre in 2018 and 2019, there was one organised for 2020, however, it had to be cancelled unfortunately, due to Covid.
“After Covid had been and gone and we came out of the pandemic, there was not the resources, funding, or volunteers available or quite frankly, the time to organise this, so it had to be someone in an external capacity to pick up this march.”
On how it was revived, she added: “I sat on the GBV partnership with the CEO of the Forth Valley Rape Crisis centre and also one of our SVMLOs (Sexual Violence and Misconduct Liason Officer) at the university, and also the team from Stirling and District’s Women’s Aid.
“We had spoken in passing about how great it would be for the event to come back up, and I remembered that our Feminist for Equity movement had also mentioned wanting to organise a liked event.
“So that’s what got the ball rolling for it, it’s something that I’m really passionate about, something that’s really close to my heart, so I knew that I would have the passion to throw at this event to make it through to where we are today, where I’m seeing so many people start to gather for the event, it’s really exciting.”
“We women are here to reclaim the night!”
Attendees ranged in age and showed enthusiasm about the event itself.
One attendee, Ealin, 29, said: “I have seen many Reclaim The Night events, but in my country I never went there, we never had them.
“I’m from Bangladesh. I studied women and gender studies, so I always wanted to go to one of these events, to reclaim the night! We women are here to reclaim the night!”
Alisha-Lu, 28, said: “It’s my first time joining an event like this, and it’s always great to join something new and learn something new, and meet new people”.
Una, 27, added: “This is such an honour to join this event for my first time to speak for women. I think that women’s voices are trending now, so it should be a global trending”.
Bella, 18, hoped that Reclaim The Night would lead to long-term changes in attitudes: “We’re here to try and spread awareness that the streets aren’t as safe as they could be, and trying to scare the predators away, knowing that there’s a community fighting against them
“I’ve been in unsafe streets before and I know how scary it can be. I want to make it less scary.
“I’m hoping for people to actually be a bit scared to not have that entitlement anymore, you know? Of going around and being able to touch a body that isn’t theirs without consent, or threatening people or intimidating them. I want people to be scared to have that entitlement, because no one should have that entitlement.”
Her friend CJ, 20, added: “I don’t want to be in a world where stuff like this does happen, so I want to go against it before it can happen.”
Charities were a powerful presence in the march
As well as attendees, there was also a huge presence of local charities at the march, including Equally Safe Falkirk Service.
Emma Kerr, who represented the group, said: “We are here today with some of our staff, but also with some of our mums that we support in our service as well, alongside some of their children.”
She added: “We work individually with adults with children or within groups, we’ve got Serenity Women’s Wellbeing group which these mums are all part of, and have been in the service for like three years.
“So it’s not just a once your support is done, you’re out kind of thing, it’s a wraparound support for as long as the person needs it.”
On the charity’s presence at the march, Emma talked about the mums who Equally Safe supports, and their passion and achievements in combating gender based violence.
She said: “All of our mums are really passionate about the fight against gender based violence, and campaigning as much as they can.
“They’ve been to Parliament, they’ve done briefing papers for MPs, and they’re just really passionate about getting the word out and trying to prevent gender based violence”
Equally Safe Falkirk Service focuses on helping families of domestic abuse survivors within the Falkirk area, working both with survivors of abuse and perpetrators. They can be contacted at: 01324638080.
Action In Mind were also in attendance, and Brig spoke to their Vice-Chair, Alison Richmond-Ferns.
She said: “We’re a mental health charity based in Stirling, providing services around Stirling, based in Riverside. We provide counselling, school counselling, we provide Hub, which is peer support groups for people to help with their mental health, and also adult befriending”
“Among our service users are students from the university, and also Action in Mind takes on volunteers every year, twice a year, particularly the psychology students are usually interested in us, but we provide placements and volunteering opportunities for students.”
Action in Mind can be contacted at: info@actioninmind.org.uk
Among attendees, some had connections with the cause itself. One attendee, Katrina Harris, 58, had known someone personally who had been a victim of rape. She praised the work of Forth Valley Rape Crisis, and added that they had been “very good and very helpful”.
Kath Hood, 61, was also familiar with the group’s work, on why she was at the march, she said: “Generally for me it’s supporting the cause, I used to be involved in Forth Valley Rape Crisis, and when I saw this was on I just decided that it’s really good to come and support it, and it’s lovely to see the university and Rape Crisis working together.”
Leslie Gallagher, 61, talked about similar events she had attended. “The last time I was at an event like this was, my goodness, 30 years ago in Drumchapel, and it was such a showout, it was a fabulous evening, and I thought it was a really good thing for women to do, and so when I heard about it I thought I’d come along”
“I hope it will empower a lot of people, and I hope it will show people the support that’s available for them in the community”
Brig also spoke to Stirling’s President of the Student Union, Justine Pedusell, who praised the VP for Communities for her hard work.
She said: “I mean it was Ellie really, and the Feminist Society and lots of really keen and engaged people that wanted to start it up again.”
On the origins of the event, Justine mentioned that the event was nearly 50 years old, and started as a response to the police’s poor handling of a serial killer.
She continued:“It started in 1977, it was in November in Leeds because there was the Yorkshire Ripper, who was going around killing women, and the police’s solution at the time was to impose a curfew on women so that they weren’t allowed to go out after dark.
“Unless, you were accompanied by a man.
“Your twelve year old brother, if you’re 28, he could walk you, and that was allowed, but you by yourself weren’t able to do that. And so women were obviously really upset about this, and so that’s how Reclaim the Night started”.
Overall, the event had an excellent turnout, with societies, charities, and attendees from both Stirling and Falkirk as well as students in attendance. However, Ellie stressed the need for events such as these in Stirling.
When asked if there was a strong need for these types of events in Stirling, the VP for Communities responded: “I think there is, there’s obviously a new Stirling report coming out, and the Sexual Crime in Scotland Report for 2023 to 2024, put Stirling at an above national average for sexual crimes”.
“I was also just a student at the university, and [I remember] walking home at night and having that kind of fear and that awareness that you wouldn’t necessarily have if you were a man.
“I think there is a big need for this event. I hope it will empower a lot of people, and I hope it will show people the support that’s available for them in the community. And it will just be really nice to see all the community come together for a shared cause”.
Between the presence of multiple charities, a fabulous turnout, a very successful afterparty at Stirling Rugby Club, and the streets of Stirling echoing the words “Hey hey, ho ho, patriarchy’s got to go’, it’s fair to say that she achieved this goal.
Featured Image Credit: Jess Urquhart
4th year Politics and Journalism student.
Secretary for Brig
The Herald Student Press Awards Columnist Of The Year 2024 (which sorry i’m still not over)
