Archive for the "Press Releases" Category
NEWS RELEASE
NOT FOR RELEASE UNTIL: October 1, 2011
CONTACT: Lori Barra, Executive Director
lori@isabelallendefoundation.org
415.289.0992
Working to End Gender Violence
Women and girls continue to be raped, tortured and exploited
Three organizations leading the fight for women’s rights to safety, dignity and self-determination receive the 2011 Espíritu Award: www.isabelallendefoundation.org
SAUSALITO, CA, October 1 — Internationally acclaimed author Isabel Allende announced today the recipients of her foundation’s annual Espíritu Awards, three organizations that through direct service, advocacy, legal action, education and economic empowerment work to ensure that women and girls can be free from discrimination, violence and sexual exploitation.
“Women and girls are raped and horribly abused as a weapon of war, for the profit of others and even as entertainment,” says Allende. “Those courageous activists who care for survivors of gender violence and challenge government apathy need all the support we can offer.”
About the Isabel Allende Foundation
Isabel Allende established her foundation in December 1996 to pay tribute to her daughter, Paula, who died at the age of 28. During her short life Paula worked as a volunteer in poor communities in Venezuela and Spain offering her time and skills as an educator and psychologist. She cared deeply for others. When in doubt, her motto was: What is the most generous thing to do?
For more information, visit www.isabelallendefoundation.org . Additional information about the author can be found at www.isabelallende.com .
The 2011 Espíritu Grantee Profiles
SPEAKING ABOUT THE UNSPEAKABLE
V-Day is a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls. V-Day promotes creative events to increase awareness, raise money and revitalize the spirit of existing anti-violence organizations. V-Day’s City of Joy is a revolutionary new community for women survivors of gender violence in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo. City of Joy will provide up to 180 Congolese women a year an opportunity to benefit from group therapy; self-defense training; comprehensive sexuality education (covering HIV/AIDS, family planning); economic empowerment; storytelling; dance; theater; ecology and horticulture. Created from their vision, Congolese women will run, operate and direct City of Joy themselves. “When I heard Eve Ensler explain that Congo is the most dangerous place on the planet to be a woman—a place where sexual violence has been used to torture and humiliate hundreds of thousands of women and destroy their families—I knew I had to help,” says Allende.
Contact : www.vday.org
CHANGING THE LAW:
For nearly 20 years the Center for Reproductive Rights has used the law to advance reproductive freedom as a fundamental human right that all governments are legally obligated to protect, respect and fulfill. As the only global legal advocacy organization dedicated to reproductive rights with expertise in both U.S. constitutional and international human rights law, the Center brings ground-breaking cases before national courts, United Nations committees, and regional human rights bodies. The Center influences the law outside the courtroom as well, documenting abuses, working with policy makers to promote progressive measures, fostering legal scholarship, and teaching on reproductive health and human rights.
“Reproductive rights are fundamental human rights; there is no distinction between them,” says Allende. “By changing laws, the Center for Reproductive Rights helps women worldwide to achieve equality, self-determination and dignity.”
Contact : www.reproductiverights.org
GIVING VOICE TO SURVIVORS:
The commercial sexual exploitation of children is a vicious and heartbreaking crisis that is confronting nearly every country throughout the world and affects more than 2 million children each year. Motivating, Inspiring, Supporting, and Serving Sexually Exploited Youth (MISSSEY) is responding to that crisis by caring for, advocating for, and facilitating the empowerment of sexually exploited youth in Oakland, California, and working nationally to prevent the sexual exploitation of children and youth through education and policy development. According to Isabel Allende, MISSSEY was chosen as one of the Espíritu Awards recipients this year because it is a small nonprofit with huge heart, and tremendous capability and determination. The staff is young, loving, informed and committed. “Girls and young women who are sexually exploited are victims, not criminals. They need care and protection,” insists Allende.
Contact : www.misssey.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Jen Hirsch/ Group SJR/646-495-9723, vday@groupsjr.com
Susan Celia Swan/ V-Day/917-865-6603, press@vday.org
Heidi K. Zuhl, Grace Cathedral, 415-749-6364, heidiz@gracecathedral.org
V-DAY PRESENTS EVE AT GRACE –
An Evening with Tony Award–Winner & V-Day Founder Eve Ensler On Sept. 27
Hosted by Grace Cathedral
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Susan Swan / Kate Fisher / V-Day
(917) 865-6603 press@vday.org
V-DAY FOUNDER EVE ENSLER ALONG WITH JANE FONDA, DONNA KARAN, ISABELLA ROSSELLINI, THANDIE NEWTON, KERRY WASHINGTON AND MORE GATHER
TO CELEBRATE V-DAY’S WORK TO END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS AT ANNUAL NYC EVENT ON WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8TH
ENSLER WILL ALSO RECEIVE 2011 ISABELLE STEVENSON TONY AWARD IN NYC ON JUNE 12TH
By Eve Ensler
As political change spreads across the Middle East and we celebrated the 100th Anniversary of International Women’s Day last month, I have spent a great deal of time meditating and appreciating the heroic and crucial role of grassroots women throughout the world. I’ve thought about how they have worked tirelessly and often under attack to stand up against violence and injustice, to provide services when the government fails to do so, and to demand accountability and an end to impunity.
In Europe, as in other parts of the world, it is thanks to grassroots women that violence against women has become an issue that is recognized by governments and policy makers. With very few resources, they run shelters, provide emergency medical support to survivors fleeing their abusers, advocate for essential policies, provide legal counsel, train women and girls in self-defense, raise awareness about taboo subjects, and help women and children pick up the pieces when their lives have been shattered, both economically and emotionally. It is because of their bravery and insistence that a husband no longer has a right to rape his wife and sexual harassment is no longer legitimized office sport.
At first glance, it looks like politics in Europe have started to take those grassroots women’s demands seriously. At the Council of Europe, with its membership spanning from Ireland to Russia, the first international binding instrument specifically devoted to violence against women is being drafted. The 27-member European Union has also made a multitude of commitments on ending violence against women, including European Parliament resolutions calling for a legally binding Directive (the most recent one adopted on 5 April 2011); EU member states echoed this call, and asked the European Commission to devise a European strategy, to create an Observatory on violence against women and to improve prevention; last year, the European Commission committed to a strategy and action plan to combat violence against women. But what has all this led to?
To date, the European Commission has not followed through on most of its commitments and obligations, whilst at the Council of Europe, at the very last stages before adoption of the “Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence”, some countries, including the UK and Russia, are now making last minute efforts to unravel key provisions made in the draft treaty.
Is it possible that we are still here in 2011 fighting for the most obvious and basic rights for women? Is it possible that European decision makers have no real interest in protecting and empowering women?
Some have said the ennui and lack of action comes from the belief that violence against women is not a pressing issue in Europe, or that the willingness of Member States to prioritize is simply a reflection of the fact that there are more important issues. That claim is absurd. Just look at the facts and tell me how violence against women could not be seen as a pressing issue:
• When including all forms of violence against women, it has been estimated that as many as 45% of all women in Europe have been subjected to male violence during their lifetime
• In France, one woman is killed every three days by her partner or ex-partner. In the UK, the figure is two per week.
• One in four female students on UK campuses says she had been subjected to an unwanted sexual experience at university or college.
• 40-50% of women in the EU have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace.
• 79% of victims of trafficking are trafficked for sexual exploitation; more than 80% of these are female.
• 500,000 girls and women in the EU live with female genital mutilation.
• For the entire Council of Europe area, the cost of domestic violence alone is estimated at an annual total of at least 33 billion euros.
The time is now for measures that would require all Member States to put their money and their time behind prevention and response measures to keep women and girls safe. If governments in Europe are serious about protecting half of their population, the adoption of a meaningful Council of Europe Convention and a legally binding EU Directive should not be so difficult. The most recent European Parliament resolution on a new EU policy framework to fight violence against women provides the framework for that. The debate leading up to the adoption of this resolution, with rather inappropriate comments by the president, proved a case in point of the urgent need for one of the measures the resolution asks for: to work against “stereotypes and socially determined beliefs which help perpetuate the conditions that generate gender based violence and acceptance of it”.
The EU will soon decide on its upcoming multi-year budget from 2013 onwards. ‘Sensible’ spending is all the “order of the day.” A recent study has shown that the cost of intimate partner violence alone, in the EU, is estimated at 16 billion Euros per year. That means 1 million Euros every half hour is wasted because nothing is done to prevent the abuse of women by their partners. The study also shows that, if the budgets for prevention of this violence were increased by 1 Euro, it could save 87 Euro in total costs. Increasing budgets for prevention would be sensible spending, wouldn’t it?
Currently, V-Day activists in over 20 European countries are organizing events in more than 100 locations to raise awareness and funds for the grassroots organizations that work to end violence against women. Commissioner Reding herself knows the power of V-Day’s grassroots activism – she herself joined V-Day activists in 2004 when she took the stage to be part of a benefit performance of The Vagina Monologues in her country, Luxembourg.
This grassroots activism fills some of the gaps that currently exist in both prevention and service provision, but political decision makers in Europe need to make ending violence against women and girls an active and real priority. Like the thousands of women and girls I have met across the 60-plus countries to which I have traveled over the past 15 years, European women know exactly what they need, and exactly how to best address their particular needs within their particular set of circumstances. It is up to political leaders to listen, and then to carefully help provide platforms and paths for them to steer their own destinies.
Eve Ensler is the founder of V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls, which grew out of her play The Vagina Monologues. Since 1999, V-Day has spread across Europe; this year alone, hundreds of V-Day activists are raising awareness and funds for shelters, community groups and other anti-violence initiatives across 22 European countries.
Contact:
Susan Celia Swan/ V-Day
917-865-6603, press@vday.org
Jen Hirsch/ Group SJR
646-495-9723, vday@groupsjr.com
V-DAY Urges Women College Students to Act Now on Campus Sexual Violence Policies
The Campus Accountability Project can inform national dialogue on sexual assault
New York, NY – April 7, 2011 – On the heels of the Obama administration’s announcement of a nationwide campaign to raise awareness about sexual violence committed against women on college campuses, V-DAY is urging women on college campuses across the country to get involved in the Campus Accountability Project (CAP).
The Campus Accountability Project, founded in 2010, is a project of V-Day, the global activist movement to end violence against women and girls, and Students Active for Ending Rape (SAFER). CAP calls on college students to research their schools’ sexual assault policies, find out what their schools are doing to prevent and respond to sexual assault, and submit their findings to the National V-Day/SAFER Campus Accountability Project Database, which can be viewed publicly here: http://safercampus.org/
CAP helps empower more students to take an active role in changing the ways in which their campuses prevent and respond to sexual assault. CAP will help inform this nationwide dialogue on what schools should be doing to properly educate and protect their students. Submitting school policies to CAP is a way for women to act on this serious problem right now.
For more on CAP: http://www.vday.org/cap
To view the CAP database: http://safercampus.org/
About V-Day
V-Day is a global activist 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. In 2010, over 5,400 V-Day benefit events took place produced by volunteer activists in the U.S. and around the world, educating millions of people about the reality of violence against women and girls. To date, the V-Day movement has raised over $80 million and educated millions about the issue of violence against women and the efforts to end it, crafted international educational, media and PSA campaigns, reopened shelters, and funded over 12,000 community-based anti-violence programs and safe houses in Democratic Republic Of Congo, Haiti, Kenya, South Dakota, Egypt and Iraq. V-Day has received numerous acknowledgements including Worth Magazine’s 100 Best Charities (2001), Marie Claire Magazine’s Top Ten Charities (2006), one of the Top-Rated organizations on Great Nonprofits (2010). www.vday.org
# # #
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jen Hirsch | Group SJR | 646.495.9723
V-Day and Ashé Cultural Arts Center
– with Support from Open Society Foundation –
Present the Critically Acclaimed Play SWIMMING UPSTREAM
in Baton Rouge, Santa Fe, and Houston
New York, NY – March 11, 2011 – Five years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf South, V-Day, the global activist movement to end violence against women and girls, in partnership with Ashé Cultural Arts Center, will present a series of special performances of Swimming Upstream, a stunning piece of theater telling stories of the storm and those who survived, in Baton Rouge, Santa Fe, and Houston.
As a city of what was once 500,000 continues to struggle to rebuild, the rest of the country have probably forgotten the brown water line that still stains homes, stores, and churches. Many have forgotten the thousands who lived through the terror of leaving their homes, the hours of waiting outside in the rain, the nightmare of the Superdome, the one wet blanket to sleep on amid the masses, the lack of food and water, and the fear of rape in the bathrooms. We think the country should never forget.
To document those incidents, for a year and a half following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, 16 women from New Orleans– including a gospel singer, a teenage filmmaker, a former Vegas showgirl, and a Mardi Gras Indian matriarch–met monthly to share stories and develop original writings about their experiences before, during, and after the storms.
In a process facilitated by playwright and activist Eve Ensler (The Vagina Monologues) and Carol Bebelle, Executive Director and Co-founder of Ashé Cultural Arts Center, the writers crafted a powerful theatrical production that tells the raw and soulful stories of women who lived through Hurricanes Katrina and Rita with grace, rage, humor, strength and great resiliency.
“Women kept New Orleans together. Through love, through sheer ingenuity, they kept New Orleans moving forward,” said Eve Ensler, V-Day Founder and playwright.”
Swimming Upstream is no mere docudrama. It is a testimony, a prayer, a blues ballad, a hallelujah, an affirmation, a nightmare, a battlecry, a eulogy, an incantation, an epic poem.
Premiering at the Louisiana Superdome in April 2008 during V-Day’s “V to the Tenth” celebration, and with subsequent shows in Atlanta, New Orleans, and most recently at the world famous Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York, Swimming Upstream has played before rapt audiences with casts featuring writers of the play, native New Orleans performers, Liz Mikel from Dallas; and celebrity guest stars, including Jasmine Guy, Shirley Knight, LaChanze, Phylicia Rashad, Anna Deavere Smith, and Kerry Washington.
The cast will now include five of the New Orleans writers and two New Orleans singers. Via monologue, poetry, and song, the production amplifies the seldom-heard voices from the ground, sharing the frustration and hopes that New Orleanians felt during one of the United States’ most tragic moments. The piece also illuminates the intersectionality of the larger American experience – posing important questions about how race, class and gender are tightly intertwined, and how they determine how we as Americans experience our society.
The show will tour three cities – Baton Rouge on March 14 and continue on from Santa Fe to Houston on March 21. As Carol Bebelle explained: “The formula was to create something that could run around the world. New Orleans survived a flood and lived to tell about it. All of us are challenged to weather the storms of life. “Swimming Upstream” is our manifesto and our journal how to persist in seeking the victory over life’s trials. It’s a love song to the world that says the way through the storm is with fellow travelers on the same or similar journeys.”
V-Day and Ashé’s body of work is proof that when actors and audience members are brought together for a performance, theater can become an intangible force for social change that has real and quantifiable results, shifting the culture and making policy and political change possible.
New Orleans performers include Anne-Liese Juge Fox, Karen-kaia Livers, Troi Bechet, Asali DeVan Ecclesiastes and Susan Wentz and singers, Michaela Harrison and Leslie Blackshear Smith.
The writers who captured these stories for stage-life are Carol Bebelle, Troi Bechet, Reverend Lois Dejean, Asali Devan Ecclesiastes, Anne-Liese Juge Fox, Adella Gautier, Briceshanay Gresham, Herreast Harrison, Karen-kaia Livers, Tommye Myrick, Cherice Harrison Nelson, Kathy Randels, Dollie Rivas, Dina Roudeze, Karel Sloane-Boekbinder and Carol Sutton.
This tour is made possible through a grant from Open Society Foundation. A portion of the proceeds will benefit V-Day and Ashé Cultural Arts Center.
Baton Rouge:
Monday, March 14, 2011 at 7:00 p.m.
Baton Rouge Community College, Magnolia Performing Arts Pavilion,
5130 Florida Boulevard
FREE event
Santa Fe:
Friday, March 18, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. at
The Lensic Performing Arts Center
Tickets available at http://www.ticketssantafe.org or 505.988.1234 –
$25 general admission, $15 students
Houston:
Monday, March 21, 2011 at 7:30pm
The Alley Theatre
Tickets available online
http://www.alleytheatre.org/swimmingupstream
$25 general admission
“In many ways the work resembles an engaging church event – complete with gospel songs, testimonies and hand-clapping redemption.”
– Variety
“If art is therapeutic, Swimming Upstream is a breakthrough.”
– The Times-Picayune, September 11, 2010
“Swimming Upstream … is the poetic equivalent of a breached levee. What begins as a flood of raw human emotion becomes a source of healing, transcendence and new beginnings.”
– The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, November 2008
About Ashé Cultural Arts Center
The mission of the Ashé Cultural Arts Center, (Ashé) an Initiative of Efforts of Grace, Inc. is to promote, produce, create and support programs, activities and creative works that emphasize the positive contributions of people of African descent. The Ashé Cultural Arts Center has been a key institution in the revitalization and rebuilding of New Orleans in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the subsequent levee failures and has partnered with many organizations focusing on community development. www.ashecac.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. To date, the V-Day movement has raised over $80 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 12,000 community-based anti-violence programs and safe houses in Democratic Republic Of Congo, Haiti, Kenya, South Dakota, Egypt and Iraq. The ‘V’ in V-Day stands for Victory, Valentine and Vagina. www.vday.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Susan Swan / V-Day
press@vday.org;
Jen Hirsch / Group SJR
jhirsch@groupsjr.com; 646.495.9723
V-DAY 2011 SEASON OF EVENTS AND CAMPAIGNS KICKS OFF
WITH THE OPENING OF CITY OF JOY IN BUKAVU, DRC
Over 1,500 Events Planned In 57 Countries; Local V-Day Fundraisers Raise Awareness And Funds To End Violence Against Women And Girls, Spotlight Haiti
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Susan Celia Swan/ V-Day
+1 917-865-6603, press (at) vday.org
Jen Hirsch/ Group SJR
+1 646-495-9723,vday (at) groupsjr.com
Christine Schuler Deschryver/V-Day Congo
+ 243998610946, christine (at) vday.org
Cornelia Walther/UNICEF DRC
+ 243 99 100 63 07, cwalther (at) unicef.org; wcornelia (at) gmail.com
CITY OF JOY, A REVOLUTIONARY NEW CENTER FOR WOMEN SURVIVORS OF GENDER VIOLENCE, TO HOLD OPENING CELEBRATION
ON FEBRUARY 4 IN BUKAVU, DRC
Conceived By Congolese Women and Created By V-Day and The Fondation Panzi (DRC) With Support From UNICEF, City Of Joy Offers New Platform and Vision For Congolese
Women to Pursue Peace in The DRC
Eve’s newest work, I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World, will be released in book form by Villard/Random House tomorrow, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9!
Made up of original monologues about and for girls from around the world, the book aims to inspire girls to take agency over their minds, bodies, hearts, and curiosities.
V-Day believes that girls are the future of our movement, just as women are the primary resource of our planet. It is imperative to educate and nurture future activists so we can see our vision of a world free from violence against women and girls come true. I Am an Emotional Creature is a new vehicle providing a platform for girls’ empowerment and activism.
Order your copy today!
Amazon >
Discounted bulk orders of I Am an Emotional Creature can be made through:
Barnes & Noble >
Inspired by I Am an Emotional Creature, V-Day has created an exciting new site for V-Girls featuring video, networking and forums, activist tips, and much more!
CHECK OUT the NEW V-Girls Site >
Read Recent News Coverage
Vagina Monologues Author Begins Her Quest For a “Girl Revolution” – Women’s Media Center >
Eve Ensler: Advocate for Girls – CBS >
An Inspiring New Book to Read (and Perform!) – Seventeen Magazine >
Eve Ensler on Sarah Palin (The Joy Beher Show – CNN) >
Girl Power Can Save The World by Eve Ensler, CNN >
Questions For Eve Ensler – The New York Times Magazine >
How One Man Gave Congo’s Women Hope – The Times of London >
WATCH Eve on TV
Tonight at 9:00pm ET on The Joy Behar Show, on CNN’s sister network HLN.
Check your local listings >
Tomorrow morning, see Eve on CBS Early Show.
Check your local listings >
Friday, February 12, Catch Eve Ensler and V-Board Member Rosario Dawson on The Tyra Show.
Find out when it’s on in your area >
ATTEND An Upcoming Event Featuring Eve!
In February, events featuring Eve will be held in Atlanta, GA; Irvine, CA; San Francisco, CA; Berkeley, CA; Santa Fe and Washington D.C.
Join us! PURCHASE your tickets available now! >