BART’s groundbreaking Not One More Girl initiative launching Phase II with focus on community care and new resources for riders

On Friday, June 2, BART and community-based organizational lead partner the Betti Ono Foundation and The Unity Council’s Latina Mentoring & Achievement Program will launch a series of pop-up events for Not One More Girl, a community-driven initiative to address sexual harassment on transit. The launch comes at a time when BART is boosting its safety presence on trains as a direct response to concerns from riders.

Launched in 2020, the Not One More Girl initiative uses art, youth participatory action research, cultural strategy, and policy change to create means of empowerment and dismantle the systems that have enabled gender-based violence and harassment. Rider survey data has indicated the initiative is helping to reduce harassment and improve the perception of safety on BART.

On June 2, BART and organizational partners will kick off the next round of outreach events at Oakland First Fridays. In addition to sharing information and resources about BART and Not One More Girl, the community is invited to participate in the creation of a collective storytelling wall and to share their stories of courage and support in recorded video interviews. The First Fridays event will be followed by a pop-up at the Fruitvale Farmers Market on Thursday, June 8, from 4pm to 6pm.

In the coming weeks, BART and Betti Ono will unveil novel Not One More Girl communication strategies, with an emphasis on safe bystander intervention tactics, as well as a new art campaign by local artist Safi Kolozsvari Regalado that will appear on trains and in stations throughout the system. BART worked with a cohort of local youth from Betti Ono’s Arts and Civic Engagement fellowship program to develop these new tools and strategies.

For this second phase of Not One More Girl, the approach is to deepen the reach and impact of our ongoing work to increase safety in our system. The current phase of the initiative places emphasis on a “culture of care” – how people may have a greater sense of control in a harassment situation as well as how fellow riders may provide support when it is occurring.  An additional focus of Phase II has been to engage BART frontline workers in the process of addressing gender-based violence in the system.

By empowering local girls and gender-expansive youth to lead the conversation and develop impactful cultural strategies, the Not One More Girl initiative seeks to challenge longtime societal norms and reimagine the culture of transit ridership to ensure safe passage for all.

Learn more about Not One More Girl and access safety tips and resources at bart.gov/nomg.

WHAT: Not One More Girl community pop-up events

WHEN/WHERE:

• Oakland First Fridays (Telegraph Ave. from West Grand to 27th St)
  • Friday, June 2, 5pm to 9pm
• Fruitvale Farmers Market (Fruitvale Transit Village, Avenida de la Fuente, Oakland)
  • Thursday, June 8, 4pm to 6pm