Archive for the "Press Releases" Category
On June 6, Eve Ensler and V-Day Managing Director Susan Celia Swan traveled to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to join V-Day Congo Director Christine Schuler Deschryver for events in Kinshasa and visits to Goma and Bukavu as part of V-Day and UNICEF’s joint campaign STOP RAPING OUR GREATEST RESOURCE: Power to the Women and Girls of the DRC. Following is an update:
The trip has been full of great highs and lows. We started in Kinshasa, the capital city, where the V-Day movement has taken hold. There are over 100 activists working on sexual violence in the city, inspired to change consciousness and initiate lasting change.
On June 5, Eve and Christine spoke to the Congolese Parliament of over 500 ministers followed by a meeting with the activists. The next day, five women from various provinces around the country, all survivors of sexual violence, broke the silence in a major event attended by government, diplomatic and United Nations officials, activists and members of civil society. The women also delivered over 4000 letters to President Kabila written by campaign activists to the representative of the DRC’s First Lady, who attended in her place. They told their stories with grace and heart and the over 500 men and women in the room listened with tears in their eyes. Each survivor demanded that the audience support the campaign, and commit to real actions to stop the violence that has affected hundreds of thousands of women and girls.
One woman explained her reason for speaking out, “…It is a cry on behalf of all women, those who have spoken out, and those still in hiding because of the stigmatization and the shame. …in my eyes, all those who tolerate sexual violence, turn a blind eye, refuse to denounce and condemn these barbaric acts – they are all as guilty as those who commit these crimes….“
Another survivor acknowledged the power of the community that is building around the STOP RAPING OUR GREATEST RESOURCE efforts, “…We have chosen to speak out so that we can help each other to get back to our families and our lives… I know now that there is a network of activists all over the country. I am now a member, but until you speak up you cannot be heard. The solidarity from these groups helps a lot with the healing.“
The finale of the day was a performance of The Vagina Monologues by five extraordinary Congolese actresses. The audience at the Hotel Sultani included hundreds of government ministers and diplomats, activists and civil society. Following the performance, the audience committed to address the issue and not only asked that a performance of the play be staged for the Parliament but that the play tour Congolese cities and villages, particularly where the people live without water and electricity and are cut off from television. The Congolese participants made the play their own, sparking an unparalleled dialogue between men and women in Congo. As a woman said at our follow up activist meeting – “the culture of Congo changed yesterday. The taboo was broken.” We wish you could have been there to hear the men talk about what they’ve learned about vaginas, and what women said about needing to look at themselves and needing men to look at their vagina. The Human Rights Minister and Gender Ministers were chanting ‘vagine.’
Our next stop was Goma where we visited with Heal Africa. The women and children there are extraordinary, however the stories are impossibly hard to bear. We met young women, ages 6-9, who are being put through school on V-Day scholarships. Each had been raped, as well as their teacher. Their spirits are strong, and we learned that while the girls are often shunned by their families after being raped, upon being educated the families accept them again. This is such an important message for us to take back and share with all of you.
In Bukavu, we met with Dr. Denis Mukwege at the Panzi Hospital and visited the future site of the City Of Joy, the leadership and healing center and safe community that the campaign is creating with your support! Dr. Mukwege and his team at Panzi continue their work daily, repairing women who have been brutally raped. The situation on the ground in Eastern Congo is volatile, with the threat of increased violence looming daily. The site for the City of Joy is near to the hospital. Traveling with UNICEF and local experts, we assessed the land and placement of the buildings. The community surrounds the site, and we will be sure to involve them in our programming at City of Joy, so that the center is a focal point for all, and the women’s message of “turning pain to power’ carries throughout.
While at the site, we visited with a group of soldier’s wives and children who live in a camp next door. The camp is made up of more than 300 women, children and babies who were recently abandoned with NO AID at all, no food, no water, no medicine, etc. In May, thanks to the generosity of the Koinonia Foundation who gifted us 500 soloar lanterns, we distributed PiSAT solar lanterns, complete with solar chargers, to the women at the camp. The lanterns were the only form of assistance that the women had received since arriving the camp and they were so thankful and proud of their solar lanterns that they said we brought “light in the darkness.” We also distributed lanterns to 30 other families surrounding the hospital. We will distribute the remaining lanterns to additional groups including small medical centers and schools next week.
Eve remains in Bukavu for meetings about the planning and programming for City of Joy. An Arte TV film crew joined us for the trip filming for a documentary that will air in France and Germany later this year.
We thank you all for your continued support of the women and girls of the DRC. Things are changing here and your dedication to raising funds and spreading the word are integral to ending the violence and changing the story of women.
Much V-Love,
Christine and Susan
READ the Press Release >
Read Digital Congo coverage (in French) >
DONATE to Stop Raping Our Greatest Resource: Power to Women and Girls in Democratic Republic of Congo >
On June 12th, Nighat Imran Rizvi, a V-Day activist who produced Pakistan’s premier production of The Vagina Monologues in 2003, produced and directed a reading of Eve’s play “Necessary Targets” in Islamabad. Following is an update from Nighat:
A group of volunteers – all of them involved in theatre or similar activities at one time – got together at the call of Nighat Imran Rizvi, an activist working on gender and HIV&AIDS for the past 16 years, with a portfolio in media (chat shows; interviews; production and direction of documentaries) to raise funds for women and children in IDP camps channeled through the Rural Support Programme Network (RSPN). The event, a play reading of Eve Ensler’s Necessary Targets was held at the National Library Auditorium (the venue courtesy Alice Shackleford and Paul Stephen Brant) and was well. At least 50% of the audience was made up of the younger generation while the ushers and anchorperson (Tanya Shah) were also young, confident and happy to be a part of this effort.
Two messages encouraging the team effort came by email – the first from the author who said, “This is an utterly wonderful and necessary idea. Let me know if there is anything we can do to support you. You have our blessings permission and most of all our love,” and the second from Hibaaq Osman, Chair of Karama, “Wishing you all the best and I could not think of a more deserving cause, it is timely and just.”
Before the play reading began the Green Ribbon campaign – which is a plea to all Pakistani citizens to ‘support your troops; support your nation and support the Pakistan that Jinnah created’ was launched with the presentation of green ribbons and a few words by Iram Naqvi, who said it is an initiative started by private citizens who want to unite the nation in their support for our troops.
CEO RSPN, Shahndana Khan then came on to say a few words about her organization which is a platform for nine rural support programmes (RSP) of Pakistan and undertakes policy advocacy; strategic guidance; capacity building; and sharing of best practice between RSP and other stakeholders.
The event began with a thought provoking prose and poetry rendition by Amer Durrani, who is currently working on writing a book. The excerpts were taken from his work.
The play reading began with an introduction of those who were taking part – Bettina Schunter an ex-theatre junkie and HIV activist who has been living in Pakistan for the past four years; Sadia Hyat, actor/anchor/social worker, who has studied acting from Vancouver Film School and worked in plays and films. She volunteers for Amnesty International; Carmen Lane has been visiting Pakistan for various projects since 2005 and has been a full time resident for the past year; Zainab Omar, editor-at-large for a business magazine and has also hosted a show ‘Zainab Can’t Cook;’ Malika Zafar who is pursuing a career in acting (her emotion filled reading of her part was an indication she will be a success at this) while learning classical music and dance and yours truly. The descriptive narrative was by read by Aamir Masood, a lawyer by profession and a musician and writer by passion. He has acted on stage with various theatre groups in Karachi. The stage had been set up as a refugee camp.
Eve Ensler’s story is about two American women, a Park Avenue psychiatrist, Melissa and a human rights worker JS, who go to Bosnia to help women confront their memories of war and emerge deeply changed themselves. Melissa and J.S. have nothing in common beyond the methods they have been taught to distance themselves from other people. As J.S. begins to feel compassion for the women whose tragedies she has been sent to expose, she turns on Melissa, who finds safety in control. In an unexpected moment of revelation, J.S. and the women she is supposedly treating find a common ground, a place to be taught and a place to learn.
In conclusion Nighat, who produced and directed the reading, thanked Nisar Malik (sponsoring sound and light) KZR (logistical ans organisational support) Nadeem Qureshi (ticket printing) Abid Naqvi and the many outlets who helped with ticket sales. Asmat Jaffer; Nabeela Ajaz; Asma Rashid; Iram Naqvi; Neelam Saleem; Komi Azizullah; Noshi Qadir for their help and support.
On Friday, May 29 at the Santa Monica Bay Woman’s Club, Global Green USA and V-Day presented the premier West Coast reading of Eve Ensler’s new play, O.P.C. (Obsessive Political Correctness) featuring Stockard Channing; Brenda Currin; Greg Itzin; Ravi Kapoor; Analeis Lorig; Liz Mikel; Lee Pace and Andrea Riseborough.
Produced by James Lecesne and Robert Egan, the one night only benefit sold out the 400 capacity theater, and received a standing ovation and rave reviews from the crowd. O.P.C. is a wildly funny and irreverent exploration of consumption and politics that asks, “How are we to survive as a species if we insist on destroying the world we love?
The evening also featured a post-play discussion with Eve Ensler (Playwright, V-Day Founder) & Matt Petersen (Global Green President) about protecting women and the environment. A reception followed, attendees included the cast as well as Ensler and Petersen, along with supporters Pat Mitchell and Scott Seydel, Jennifer Buffett, Arianna Huffington, Lauren Hutton, Paula Mazur, Dylan McDermott, Shiva Rose, Marisa Tomei, and V-Day Board members Carole Black, Kerry Washington, Rosario Dawson, Pat Mitchell, and Sheryl Sandberg.
ABOUT GLOBAL GREEN USA & V-DAY
Founded in 1993 by activist and philanthropist Diane Meyer Simon, Global Green is the American Arm of Green Cross International (GCI), which was created by President Mikhail S. Gorbachev to foster a global value shift toward a sustainable and secure future by reconnecting humanity with the environment. Global Green USA is the only national environmental non-profit headquartered in Southern California with offices in New Orleans, Washington DC, and New York, and is one of 31 national GCI affiliates throughout the world.
V-Day is a global movement to end violence against women and girls that raises funds and awareness through benefit productions of Founder Eve Ensler’s award winning play The Vagina Monologues and other artistic works. The V-Day movement has raised over $70 million and educated millions about the issue of violence against women and the efforts to end it, crafted international educational, media and PSA campaigns, launched the Karama program in the Middle East, reopened shelters, and funded over 10,000 community-based anti-violence programs and safe houses in Democratic Republic Of Congo, Haiti, Kenya, South Dakota, Egypt and Iraq. V-Day was named one of Worth magazine’s “100 Best Charities” in 2001 and Marie Claire’s “Top Ten Charities” in 2006. The ‘V’ in V-Day stands for Victory, Valentine and Vagina. http://www.vday.org
Cast Announced for Exclusive One Night Reading Of Eve’s New Play O.P.C. In Los Angeles
Global Green USA and V-Day present the premier West Coast reading of Eve Ensler’s new play, O.P.C. (Obsessive Political Correctness), a wildly funny and irreverent exploration of consumption and politics that asks, “How are we to survive as a species if we insist on destroying the world we love?”
The cast will include Stockard Channing; Brenda Currin; Greg Itzin; Ravi Kapoor; Analeis Lorig; Liz Mikel; Lee Pace and Andrea Riseborough.
This one night only reading is a benefit to protect women and the environment, featuring a post play discussion with Eve Ensler and Global Green USA President Matt Petersen.
Purchase Tickets Online At http://www.globalgreen.org/opc
$30 General Admission (no reserved seating)
$125 VIP (Includes Preferred Seating, VIP Reception w/Eve Ensler & Cast)
Eve Ensler testified on the topic of rape as a weapon of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Wednesday, May 13 at 2:30pm before a joint hearing “Confronting Rape and Other Forms of Violence Against women in Conflict Zones” of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs and the new Subcommittee on International Operations and Organizations, Human Rights, Democracy and Global Women’s Issues. Senators Barbara Boxer and Russell D. Feingold presided over the hearing. Eve shared her experiences and knowledge of the issue, and provided recommendations for change.
Joining her on the panel were: Chouchou Namegabe Nabintu, a
Journalist from the DRC; Robert Warwick, Country Director of
Southern Sudan International Rescue Committee; Neimat Ahmadi,
Darfuri Liason Officer for the Save Darfur Coalition, and John
Prendergast, Co-Founder of The Enough Project. Three members
from the State Department also testified: The Honorable Melanne
Verveer, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues; The
Honorable Esther Brimmer, Assistant Secretary of State for
International Organization Affairs, and Phil Carter, Acting
Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of African Affairs.
Read Eve’s testimony >
The hearing comes shortly after Eve and Stephen Lewis, former UN
Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, were invited to speak to
Parliamentarians and Senators of the Canadian Government for
“Until The Violence Stops: How Canada Can Help End The Use Of
Sexual Violence As A Weapon In War.”
Learn more about V-Day’s Congo Spotlight >
Read Eve’s speech to the Canadian Parliament >
Testimony of Eve Ensler
before the Senate Foreign Relations’ Subcommittees on African Affairs and International Operations and Organizations, Human Rights, Democracy, and Global Women’s Issues
“Confronting Rape and Other Forms of Violence Against Women in Conflict Zones”
Good afternoon, I am here on behalf of countless V-Day activists worldwide, and in solidarity with my many Congolese sisters and brothers who demand justice and an end to rape. I thank you for the opportunity to testify.
I am here because you—the United States government—are the most powerful government in the world. You have great influence in the Great Lakes region of Africa. It can be your legacy to inspire and provoke the world community to put an end to the worst femicide on the planet.
As some of you may know, my play The Vagina Monologues led me into the world of violence against women and girls. Everywhere I traveled with it scores of women lined up to tell me of their rapes, incest, beatings, mutilations. 1 out of 3 women on this planet will be raped or beaten in her lifetime.
It was because of this that over 11 years ago we launched V-Day, a worldwide movement to end violence against women and girls. The movement has spread like wildfire to 130 countries, raising 70 million dollars. I have visited and revisited the rape mines of the world, from defined war zones like Bosnia, Afghanistan, Haiti to the domestic battlegrounds in colleges and communities throughout North America, Europe and the world. My in box and heart have been jammed with stories every hour of every day for over a decade.
I am here today to tell you that nothing I have heard or seen compares with what is going on in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
When I returned from my first trip there nearly 2 years ago, I was shattered. I had crossed over to another zone in my psyche. I am not sure I will ever get back.
Upon my return, still in a state of initial madness, I was unphased by all those who said the world was not interested in the Congo, all those survivors and activists I had met in Bukavu and Goma who had been working for years with their counterparts in the Congolese Diaspora throughout the world. Those like Dr. Mukwege, a Congolese OB/GYN and founder of the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu who has been sewing up women’s and little girl’s vaginas for 12 years as fast as the militias are ripping them apart. I was unphased by the cynicism and doubt as any new zealot. The world simply hadn’t gotten the necessary information. No world government, no leader, no body of the UN could turn its back, could sit and do nothing when they heard what I had heard, seen what I had seen. In 12 years, 6 million dead Congolese. 1.4 million displaced. Hundreds and thousands of women and girls raped and tortured. Babies as young as 6 months, women as old as 80, their insides torn asunder. No one could rightly ignore femicide–the systematic and planned destruction and annihilation of a female population as a tactic of war to clear villages, pillage mines of their coltan gold and tin, and wear away the fabric of Congolese society. No one could turn their back on Beatrice, a lean, pretty woman who was found in the forest after a soldier shot a gun in her vagina. She now has tubes instead of organs, or Lumo who was raped by over 50 men in the course of one day and has had nine operations and still has fistula, or Honorata who was taken by militia and tied to a wheel upside down then was raped and raped and over by so many soldiers she lost count—they called her “the queen”, or Sowadi who watched the soldiers choke and smash the skulls of her children then was forced to watch her best friend’s child cut from her pregnant belly and after they were forced to eat the dead cooked baby or die. It goes on and on. Women who were being raped as they watched their husbands being slaughtered, women watching their daughters being raped, sons being forced to rape their sisters and mothers, husbands watching their wives be raped. Sons being raped. All this happening for 12 years, all this happening right now as I speak.
I believed that just telling their stories, speaking these words, would be enough to propel those with power into action. I have traveled everywhere these last two years speaking out to the Security Council, the Secretary General, parliaments, world leaders. With many others I have pleaded for more peacekeepers asking over and over when the so-called 3000 troops who are supposedly on their way to DRC will ever show up? Asking when the powers that be might flex their diplomatic muscle in the best interest of the Congolese people by advocating for a political solution to the largest conflict since WWII.
I have felt a murderous lethargy in the halls of power. I have heard members of the European Parliament say they had no idea it was even happening. I have been in situation after situation where the serving of protocol trumps the saving of human lives. I have heard empty promises and straight out lies. I have waited as those that have the power to change this situation work through bureaucracy and hierarchies so that months and months pass and nothing is ever done. And then when it is all too late, ill conceived plans made in back rooms are rushed into play that bring more violence and rapes but get labeled success by the world community. Witness the recent joint military operations against the FDLR (the remnants of the Hutu genocidaires) by the Congolese and Rwandan troops in January, now be touted in the west as a success. A success for whom? We know the action was a failure, as rather than neutralizing the FDLR, it scattered them, emboldening them to rape and pillage with reckless abandon.
The women we work with in Goma at the Heal Africa hospital are reporting 500 raped women have arrived each month since January. The UN Secretary General’s recent report says 36 women are raped a day in Eastern Congo. Now, all of South Kivu is clenched, sleepless as they wait for the next nightmarish incursion. Even the MONUC officials themselves do not hold back when talking about their lack of faith in the situation on the ground–during a recent security briefing about South Kivu one Colonel said publicly that the joint operation of MONUC and the Congolese army will be a huge disaster that will most probably end in terrible tragedy because strategy, logistical support, and funding for soldiers was lacking, not to mention that the vast, dense forest proves to be a difficult place to win. Even Alan Doss, Special Representative of the General Secretary of the United Nations in DRC, admitted on Radio Okapi that he needs more men if the mission is ever to succeed.
What these policies or strategies indicate, (if we can call them that, as strategies usually imply a vision of outcome and consequences) and what the last ten years of policies indicate, is the profound indifference and shocking disregard for the lives of the Congolese people, in particular women and girls on the ground.
There is something sinister afoot.
I was there in Bosnia during the war in 1994. When it was discovered that there were rape camps and that thousands of women were being raped as a strategy of war. I watched the rapid response of the western world community. After all these were white women in Europe being raped. Within two years there was adequate intervention. It has been 12 years in the DRC. Hundreds of thousands of women and girls raped and tortured. I can only believe now that we are dealing not just with the terrible legacy of genocidal colonialism in the DRC, the core impact of it now lodged in the DNA of the worst perpetrators, but more disturbingly the Congo has become not the “heart of darkness,” but the “heart of racism”– the place where the world’s disregard, its indifference towards black people and particularly black women has completely manifested.
Is it because the powers that be care more about power and resources and money? Is it that coltan, the mineral that keeps our cell phones and computers in play, is more important than the bodies and souls of little Congolese girls? International mining companies have significant economic investment in the DRC and I fear they privilege economic interest over the bodies of women. We in the west with our cell phones and play station and computers filled with minerals extracted on the bodies of women. We in the West leaving the women in the forests to be raped and tortured. Is it the British and US guilt over terrible inaction in Rwanda (which allowed genocide), which now allows them to turn a blind eye to Rwanda’s role in the femicide and murder of the Congolese?
Is it simply that the UN and most governments are run and controlled by men who have never known what it feels like to have bayonet shoved up their vagina or who have never lost a bladder and rectum and then had to wait for months for a pouch for their urine and feces so they could be freed from sitting in a wretched smell exiled from everyone and everywhere? Is it that they won’t allow themselves to imagine what this feels like? Or is it that patriarchy has so normalized violence against women that none of this shocks or disturbs them? Is it that they know that for patriarchy to continue, for them to keep their power, this violence must continue as well?
What is happening in the DRC is the worst violence towards women in the world. If it continues to go unchecked, unstopped, if there continues to be complete impunity it sets a precedent, a standard, it expands the boundaries of what now becomes permissible to do to women’s bodies in the name of exploitation and greed everywhere. Already it is spreading. Just this week I received an email that documented that Congolese soldiers are kidnapping and selling young Congolese girls between 12 and 16 years of age to Angolan soldiers. This impunity sends a signal to the world that the bodies of women and children will be the new battleground on which cheap wars will be fought. It says the international community is willing to sacrifice African women and girls to get the resources it needs. And we know as resources become more precious, more and more women, first the poor and marginalized, then the rest will be sacrificed.
Women in the Congo are some of the most resilient women in the world. They need protection. I ask you—fund a training program for Congolese women police officers. Address our role in plundering minerals and demand that companies trace the routes of these minerals. Make sure they are making and selling rape-free-products. Put pressure on Rwanda, Congo, Uganda and other countries in the Great Lakes region to sit down with all the militias involved in this conflict to find a political solution. Military solutions are no longer an option and will only bring about more rape. Most of all support the women. Because women are at the center of this horror, they must be at the center of the solutions and peace negotiations. Supply funds for women’s medical and psychological care, for educational and economic empowerment. Women are the future of the DRC. They are her greatest resource.
Yet, in Eastern Congo, 1100 women are being raped each month. More Noella’s are being raped as I speak. Where is the United States? I implore you – lead the world. Take action. Make this your mission.
Let the Congo be where we ended femicide, the trend that is madly eviscerating this planet—from the floggings in Pakistan, the new rape laws in Afghanistan, the ongoing rapes in Haiti, Darfur, Zimbabwe, the daily battering, incest, harassing, trafficking, enslaving, genital cutting and honor killing. Let the Congo be the place where women were finally cherished and life affirmed, where the humiliation and subjugation ended, where women took their rightful agency over their bodies and land. Where the US led the world in standing against against rape and femicide, where the US stood for women.
For interviews, contact Susan Celia Swan, (917) 865-6603, press@vday.org .
Read more about the hearing >
New York, NY – Playwright and V-Day Founder Eve Ensler will testify on the topic of rape as a weapon of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Wednesday, May 13 at 2:30pm before a joint hearing “Confronting Rape and Other Forms of Violence Against women in Conflict Zones” of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs and the new Subcommittee on International Operations and Organizations, Human Rights, Democracy and Global Women’s Issues. Senators Barbara Boxer and Russel D. Feingold will preside over the hearing.
Ensler will share her experiences and knowledge of the issue, and provide recommendations for change. Since 2007, she has traveled to the DRC on numerous occasions and spoken out through articles, speeches, and advocacy placing a global spotlight on the wide-scale atrocities committed against women and girls in Eastern DRC. Together with Congolese women, UNICEF and V-Day have mounted a global campaign entitled STOP RAPING OUR GREATEST RESOURCE: Power to The Women And Girls of the DRC, raising awareness and funds, and developing strategies and programs to empower women on the ground.
“Before I went to the Congo, I’d spent the past 10 years working on V-Day, the global movement to end violence against women and girls. I’d traveled to the rape mines of the world – places like Bosnia, Afghanistan and Haiti, where rape has been used as a tool of war. But nothing I ever experienced felt as ghastly, terrifying and complete as the sexual torture and attempted destruction of the female species here. It is not too strong to call this a femicide, to say that the future of the Congo’s women is in serious jeopardy. This is an economic war that is being fought on the bodies of women.” Ensler has stated.
For interviews, contact Susan Celia Swan, (917) 865-6603, press@vday.org.
About V-Day
V-Day is a global movement to end violence against women and girls that raises funds and awareness through benefit productions of Playwright/Founder Eve Ensler’s award winning play The Vagina Monologues and other artistic works. The V-Day movement has raised over $70 million and educated millions about the issue of violence against women and the efforts to end it, crafted international educational, media and PSA campaigns, launched the Karama program in the Middle East, reopened shelters, and funded over 10,000 community-based anti-violence programs and safe houses in Democratic Republic Of Congo, Haiti, Kenya, South Dakota, Egypt and Iraq. V-Day was named one of Worth magazine’s “100 Best Charities” in 2001 and Marie Claire’s “Top Ten Charities” in 2006. The ‘V’ in V-Day stands for Victory, Valentine and Vagina. http://www.vday.org
On Thursday May 7, actor Thandie Newton will be performing Eve’s newest monologue A Teenage Girl’s Guide To Surviving Sex Slavery, at an event hosted by politician and broadcaster Oona King at the Southbank Centre. The event is part of Congo Now! a weeklong campaign of events and publicity celebrating the Congo and highlighting the unacceptable conflict there.
The evening will feature Congolese talent and British artists inspired by the country – writers, poets, musicians and visual artists. There will be Congolese dance and music in The Front Room space as part of the event and a photo exhibit by the acclaimed photojournalist Susan Schulman.
For more information and tickets please click here. http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/literature-spoken-word/productions/cong…
Join Global Green USA and V-Day
for the premiere West Coast Reading of
O.P.C.
Obsessive Political Correctness
a new play by Eve Ensler
Friday, May 29
8:00 pm
A benefit to protect women and the environment,
featuring a Post Play Discussion
with Eve Ensler (Playwright, V-Day Founder) & Matt Petersen
(Global Green USA President)
The Santa Monica Bay Women’s Club
1210 Fourth Street, Santa Monica
Tickets:
$30 General Admission & Post Play Discussion
$125 VIP (Includes Preferred Seating, Post Play Discussion, VIP
Reception
w/Eve & Cast)
To purchase tickets, visit http://www.globalgreen.org/opc
On April 2, 2009, The Centre for Women’s Studies Zagreb, together with the Centre for Women Victims of War and Women’s Room, organized V-Day Zagreb, marking ten years of V-Day in Croatia.
V-Day Founder/Artistic Director Eve Ensler traveled to Zagreb for this momentous event and to speak to the international audience about V-Day’s global Campaign STOP RAPING OUR GREATEST RESOURCE: POWER TO THE WOMEN AND GIRLS OF THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO (DRC)
V-Day Zagreb was a tremendous success, with a sold out audience of over 200 women and men, including 50 activists from the region in Kino. Eve was interviewed by Rada Boric, Executive Director of The Center for Women’s Studies and V-Day Regional Coordinator, about the issue of violence against women and girls in the DRC and V-Day’s efforts to end it.
Rada has worked with Eve and V-Day for over ten years, bringing V-Day to Croatia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Finland. As Executive Director of The Center for Women’s Studies, the first and only centre of its kind in Croatia, Rada and the staff continue to work every day to empower women in the region through education, raising awareness about issues facing women, and promoting women in political and civil initiatives.
The V-Day Zagreb evening performance of The Vagina Monologues was held in Zagreb Puppet Theatre, scena Travno and was attended by activists from all over the region, including Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Slovinia.
“Performers, activists and the audience shared their experience after the event. All were sharing the the same feeling: IT WAS TRULY A VICTORIOUS DAY FOR WOMEN’S STRUGGLE AGAINST VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN.”
-Rada Boric