V-Day Blog Archive

NEW City of Joy Website Launches!

V-Day is proud to announce the launch of the new City of Joy website!

Join us as drc.vday.org where you will meet the people of City of Joy; hear voices from Bukavu and beyond; visit the V-World Farm through incredible images by Paula Allen; explore the history of City of Joy and V-Day’s work in Congo; learn the 10 guiding principals, and more.

“When the girls arrive here they don’t know their value, they don’t know that they can do the work, but time after time they always discover that they are the most beautiful flowers.” – Christine Schuler Deschryver, V-Day Congo Director & Director of City of Joy

LEARN more and VISIT US at drc.vday.org >

The State Of Female Justice in America: Meet the Panelists

This Thursday, November 7th, we are so proud to bring you The State of Female Justice in America, a one-night-only panel discussion at Columbia Law School exploring why women experience economic, racial, and cultural violence; and ask ourselves what might real justice look like for women in America?

Tickets are $10 and available at www.vday.org/sfja

If you are a STUDENT you can come for free, however you MUST RSVP at rsvp@vday.org

WHAT: THE STATE OF FEMALE JUSTICE IN AMERICA
WHEN: Thursday, November 7, Doors: 7:30pm, Program:8pm
WHERE: Jerome Green Hall, Columbia Law School, 435 W 116 St, NYC

Meet the Women Behind The State of Female Justice in America
We have an inspirational group of women who will take part in this discussion, here’s some brief information about each, make sure to check out their work!

LAURA FLANDERS (event host)

Best-selling author and broadcaster Laura Flanders is the founder and host of GRITtv, a multi-media platform for in-depth, solutions-focused interviews with the smartest thinkers & doers of our time. She is the 2013 local economies reporting fellow at Yes! and a contributing writer to The Nation magazine. Author of BUSHWOMEN; Tales of a Cynical Species and Blue Grit!… Flanders is a regular guest on MSNBC. Find out more at GRITtv.org or follow her @GRITlaura

CATHERINE ALBISA

Ms. Albisa is a constitutional and human rights lawyer with a background on the right to health. Ms. Albisa also has significant experience working in partnership with community organizers in the use of human rights standards to strengthen advocacy in the United States. She co-founded NESRI along with Sharda Sekaran and Liz Sullivan in order to build legitimacy for human rights in general, and economic and social rights in particular, in the United States. She is committed to a community-centered and participatory human rights approach that is locally anchored, but universal and global in its vision.  Ms. Albisa also litigated constitutional challenges to laws limiting access to reproductive health services as a senior attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights and staff attorney at the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project.  She co-taught the International Women’s Human Rights Law Clinic at CUNY law school and was the Associate Director at the Human Rights Institute at Columbia Law School.  Ms. Albisa clerked for the Honorable Mitchell Cohen in the District of New Jersey. She received a BA from the University of Miami and is a graduate of Columbia Law School.

Learn more >

KIMBERLÉ CRENSHAW

Kimberlé Crenshaw, Professor of Law at UCLA and Columbia Law School, is a leading authority in the area of Civil Rights, Black feminist legal theory, and race, racism and the law.  Her articles have appeared in theHarvard Law Review, National Black Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, and Southern California Law Review. She is the founding coordinator of the Critical Race Theory Workshop, and the co-editor of the volume, Critical Race Theory: Key Documents That Shaped the Movement. Crenshaw has lectured widely on race matters, addressing audiences across the country as well as in Europe, India, Africa and South America.

Crenshaw has worked extensively on a variety of issues pertaining to gender and race in the domestic arena including violence against women, structural racial inequality, and affirmative action. A specialist on race and gender equality, she has facilitated workshops for human rights activists in Brazil and in India, and for constitutional court judges in South Africa. Her groundbreaking work on “Intersectionality” has traveled globally and was influential in the drafting of the equality clause in the South African Constitution.

In 1996, Crenshaw co-founded the African American Policy Forum, a gender and racial justice legal think tank, which houses a variety of projects designed to deliver research-based strategies to better advance social inclusion.  In 2011, Crenshaw founded the Center for Intersectionality & Social Policy Studies at Columbia Law School, which aims to foster critical examination of how social structures and related identity categories such as gender, race, and class interact on multiple levels, resulting in social inequality. Crenshaw currently serves as Executive Director of both organizations.

Learn more >

EVE ENSLER

Eve Ensler is a Tony award winning playwright, performer and activist. She is the author of international phenomenon, The Vagina Monologues, which won an Obie and has been published in 48 languages and performed in over 140 countries. Eve wrote the New York Times Bestseller, I Am An Emotional Creature: The Secret Life Of Girls Around The World. She then adapted it as a play which ran successfully in South Africa, Paris, Berkeley and Off-Broadway. She is the founder of V-Day, the global movement to end violence against women and girls, which has raised over 100 million dollars for grassroots organizations around the world.  On V-Day’s 15th Anniversary, it launched it’s most ambitious campaign One Billion Rising which inspired one billion people in 207 countries  to Strike Dance and Rise on Feb 14, 2013  for the freedom, safety and equality of women. With the women of Congo,  V-Day opened and supports City of Joy In Bukavu, Congo, a revolutionary center where survivors of gender violence Turn Their Pain to Power.

Learn more >

MONIQUE C. HARDEN

Monique Harden is the co-director and attorney of Advocates for Environmental Human Rights (“AEHR”), a nonprofit, public interest law firm in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA that she co-founded with attorney Nathalie Walker in 2002.  AEHR is dedicated to upholding our human right to live in a healthy environment.  AEHR holds companies and the government accountable when this right is violated, and advocates for public policy that supports this right.  With every step, AEHR educates people about their right to live in healthy communities.

On behalf of African Americans living in the historic community of Mossville, Louisiana, Ms. Harden and AEHR legal staff filed the first ever human rights petition that seeks fundamental change of the United States environmental regulatory system.  The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States recently deemed the petition to be admissible for a review on the merits, marking the first time the Commission has taken jurisdiction over a case of environmental racism in the United States.  In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil drilling disaster, AEHR is spearheading advocacy aimed at protecting the basic right of people harmed by a disaster to recover with dignity and justice.  AEHR has raised public support for U.S. adoption of human rights standards for persons displaced by climate-induced disasters and protection of the human right to health for people exposed to toxic pollution from the BP disaster.  Ms. Harden coordinates diverse international, national, and regional coalitions advocating for environmental justice and climate justice.

Learn more >

DONNA HYLTON

Donna Hylton is a Community Health Advocate for the Coming Home Program of St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital in NYC. Coming Home is a special transition case-management and support program designed specifically for people who have been incarcerated and are returning to the community. In her capacity, Donna identifies and addresses the needs of clients transitioning home from prison and jail. Donna is also an active member of the Coalition for Women Prisoners, a statewide alliance of individuals and organizations dedicated to reforming the criminal justice system as it affects women, children and communities. Donna spent 27 years in prison where she was a key member of the Coalition’s “Violence Against Women Committee on the Inside.” She has participated in numerous panel discussions and public presentations, and has attended multiple lobby days with legislators in Albany since coming home. Donna is also an advocate with STEPS to End Family Violence, the state’s only Alternative-to-Incarceration program for survivors-defendants. Donna has a Bachelor of Science degree in Behavioral Science and a Master of Arts degree in English from Mercy College.

Learn more >

SARU JAYARAMAN

Saru Jayaraman is Co-Director of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC-United) and Director of the Food Labor Research Center at University of California, Berkeley. Initiated after 9/11, ROC has grown into a national restaurant workers’ organization with 10,000 members in 30 cities, 100 employer partners, more than two dozen published reports, more than a dozen campaign victories, and two cooperatively-owned restaurants. The story of ROC’s work has been chronicled in the book The Accidental American by Rinku Sen with Fekkak Mamdouh. Saru is a graduate of Yale Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She was profiled in the New York Times “Public Lives” section, and as one of Crain’s “40 Under 40”, and one of New York Magazine’s “Influentials” of New York. She authored Behind the Kitchen Door, (Cornell, 2013), a national bestseller, and has appeared on CNN, Bill Moyers Journal on PBS, MSNBC, the Today Show, and Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO.

Learn more >

SYLVIA MCADAM

Sylvia McAdam was born and raised on the Big River Reserve in Treaty Six Territory.  She holds degrees in law and human justice and teaches at the First Nations University.

Sylvia McAdam is the author of the book Cultural Teachings: First Nations Protocols & Methodologies, a guide to appropriate traditional etiquette for individuals attending ceremonial activities of indigenous peoples in Saskatchewan.

Sylvia McAdam is one of four founders of the Idle No More movement which has gained world-wide recognition as a positive and “peaceful revolution to honour Indigenous sovereignty, and to protect the land and water.”

Learn more >

Thursday, November 7: The State of Female Justice in America

Building on last year’s sold-out public forum on the State of Female America, V-Day is bringing together a stellar group of women for a public panel discussion on The State of Female Justice.

Hosted by Laura Flanders (GRITtv) and featuring:
Cathy Albisa – National Economic & Social Rights Initiative
Kimberlé Crenshaw – Columbia Law School / UCLA Law School
Eve Ensler – V-Day
Monique Harden – Advocates for Environmental Human Rights in New Orleans
Donna Hylton – STEPS to End Family Violence
Saru Jayaraman – Restaurant Opportunities Centers United
Sylvia McAdam – Idle No More

Join us as we explore why women experience economic, racial, and cultural violence; and ask ourselves what might real justice look like for women in America?

WHAT: THE STATE OF FEMALE JUSTICE IN AMERICA
WHEN: Thursday, November 7, Doors: 7:30pm, Program: 8pm
WHERE: Jerome Green Hall, Columbia Law School, 435 W 116 St, NYC
TICKETS: $10 general admission* Purchase here >

* Student Tickets are available for free, please email rsvp@vday.org

Tuesday, October 29: Dr. Denis Mukwege in Conversation with Eve Ensler – Special $10 Activist Rate Available!

V-Day has tickets at the special rate of $10 available for you our incredible V-Day activists for this one night only event in NYC!

RISE4JUSTICE: Dr. Denis Mukwege in Conversation with Eve Ensler
Tuesday, October 29
6:30 – 8:30pm
(Doors open at 6:00pm)
Deepak Homebase at ABC Carpet & Home
888 Broadway at E. 19 Street, NYC

TICKETS:
$25* General Admission available at www.vday.org/dm
$10* V-Day Activist rate, please email rsvp@vday.org

WATCH ONLINE: This event will be livestreamed at vday.org/livestream

An Evening with Dr. Denis Mukwege & Eve Ensler is part of the RISE4JUSTICE Speakers Series which will examine the meaning of justice to activists working globally to end gender violence and oppression, while looking at impunity caused by the intersection of poverty, racism, war, theplunder of the environment, capitalism, imperialism, and patriarchy. The series is presented by V-Day, the global activist movement to end violence againstwomen and girls, and ABC Carpet & Home.

*100% of the proceeds will go to the Panzi Foundation, supporting the ongoing work of Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, DRC and creating new outreach projects to rural clinics and communities.

Don’t Miss this Saturday, Eve at the Save Minisink & The Black Dirt Farms Rally

Saturday, October 26, Eve Ensler will be joining a coalition of groups and speakers including John Feal, Angela Monti Fox, as well as affected farmers, food distributors, chefs and restaurateurs for the Save Minisink & The Black Dirt Farms Rally in Union Square, NYC. The rally will focus on connecting the dots between fracking infrastructure and our food supply. Eve will be speaking about the connections between violence against women and violence against Mother Earth.

Learn more >

WATCH Come To “Save The Black Dirt Region” Rally >

Rise4Justice Series Continues with Dr. Denis Mukwege in Conversation with Eve in NYC

Don’t miss the second event in our RISE4JUSTICE Speakers Series!

Tuesday, October 29
6:30 – 8:30pm
(Doors open at 6:00pm)
Deepak Homebase at ABC Carpet & Home
888 Broadway at E. 19 Street, NYC

TICKETS:
$25* General Admission available at vday.org/dm
$10* V-Day Activist rate, please email rsvp@vday.org

V-Day also has a limited amount of sponsored tickets available, free of charge. If you need a sponsored ticket, please email rsvp@vday.org

An Evening with Dr. Denis Mukwege & Eve Ensler is part of the RISE4JUSTICE Speakers Series which will examine the meaning of justice to activists working globally to end gender violence and oppression, while looking at impunity caused by the intersection of poverty, racism, war, the plunder of the environment, capitalism, imperialism, and patriarchy. The series is presented by V-Day, the global activist movement to end violence against women and girls, and ABC Carpet & Home.

Dr. Mukwege is the Director and Founder of the ground-breaking Panzi General Referral Hospital in Bukavu, South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he performs life-saving fistula surgeries on girls and women who have been brutally raped and mutilated in the Congolese war. He is also the head of the Panzi Foundation, which runs the City of Joy, and the Godfather of the V-Men movement.

*100% of the proceeds will go to the Panzi Foundation, supporting the ongoing work of Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, DRC and creating new outreach projects to rural clinics and communities.

RISE4JUSTICE: Malalai Joya: “For my people, peace without justice is meaningless.”

On Saturday, 5 October, 200 people gathered together for a sold-out evening at the beautiful Deepak Homebase, located in the heart of Manhattan at ABC Carpet & Home. Women, men, andyouth came from throughout the five boroughs and from as far away as Buffalo to see Afghan activist and author Malalai Joya in conversation with Eve Ensler.

CONTINUE reading >

WATCH: Malalai Joya in Conversation with Eve Ensler >

Happy International Day of the Girl! South Africa Will RISE For Justice

Happy International Day of the Girl! On this special day where people everywhere are recognizing girls’ rights and the unique challenges girls face around the world, we are thrilled to present this update from V-Day Managing Director Cecile Lipworth, Campaigns Manager Joliz Cedeño, and One Billion Rising for Justice Global Coordinator for Southern Africa Barbara Mhangami Ruwende on their recent trip to visit our V-Girls in South Africa. Over the past two years these Emotional Creatures have been visiting schools, holding summits, and taking action against issues affecting their communities. They are self proclaimed REFUSERS who provide safe spaces for girls and develop sustainable actions by partnering with other groups who share their vision for a world without violence against women and girls. We celebrate these young girls who are committed to revolutionizing the way girls are seen and treated not only in South Africa, but around the globe.

South Africa RISING: Justice for All
by V-Day Managing Director Cecile Lipworth

I love to travel! It excites me to get on a plane and leave one place and arrive in another. But never more so than when I am headed back to my home country and hometown, Johannesburg, South Africa. And when my travel is V-Day related I know I am going to meet extraordinary people. The excitement that filled me as I boarded the plane for South Africa with Joliz and Barbara was uncontainable. I barely slept on the 17 hour flight.

Over two weeks we met with activists, survivors, choreographers, executives, sex workers, media representatives, youth, men, teachers, students, V-Girls and grassroots leaders. In coffee shops, restaurants, boardrooms, school rooms, on college campuses and in Parliament, we met women and men, young and old, who are ALL impassioned, fiercely determined to create change, and hugely inspiring. Whether I was discussing plans for an Africa Tour of Emotional Creature in 2014, watching our V-Girls in South Africa bond, or hearing how justice should be served during One Billion Rising for Justice meetings, I was in continuous awe of the the creative programs that are happening in South Africa – paradigm changing concepts that activists are putting forward.

It was an amazing two weeks, and I am forever thankful to everyone we met for welcoming me back home and allowing us to be a part of envisioning a new South Africa!

Cecile Lipworth
V-Day Managing Director

Emotional Creatures Changing South Africa!
By Campaigns Manager Joliz Cedeño

There is an energy in South Africa unlike any country I’ve traveled to before. It doesn’t come from its bustling city landscape, but rather the present and palpable desire for change. Upon meeting activists and V-Girls throughout Johannesburg and Cape Town it was evident – South Africans are not ones to wait for justice to come, they are already taking action.

CONTINUE reading >

The Transformative Journey That was South Africa
By Global Coordinator for Southern Africa Barbara Mhangami Ruwende

I journeyed to Johannesburg South Africa, with Cecile Lipworth, Managing Director of V-Day and Joliz Cedeño the Campaigns Manager. We were headed to South Africa to meet with activists, media, dancers, philanthropists and other parties who were interested in the One Billion Rising for JusticeCampaign, a campaign for justice for the victims of rape and violence that would culminate in huge gatherings of people demonstrating and dancing in various places on February 14, 2014. We wanted to get a sense of what activists in South Africa saw as the key justice issues around which they wanted to build the campaign.

CONTINUE reading >

The World Rises for Justice: OBR Website Expands! Share What Justice Looks Like to You, and MORE!

The World RISES for Justice. Over 100 Countries Signed on!

The One Billion Rising for Justice campaign is rapidly building upon the energy and momentum that was created in early 2013 when one billion activists in 207 countries came together to strike, dance, and rise to end violence against women and girls.

“In 2013, one billion rose around the world to end violence against women and girls in the biggest mass action in the history of the world. This year we are escalating and connecting the dots. We are rising for gender, economic, racial, environmental Justice. We are rising and dancing with our bodies, to end the violations towards our bodies and the body of the earth,” stated V-Day Founder and award winning playwright Eve Ensler.

Expanded Website Featuring Videos from Haiti, the Philippines, South Africa, Syria, & More

The expanded One Billion Rising website will feature activist videos, daily news updates and photos, information on joining the campaign and much more. Individuals and organizations can get involved with One Billion Rising online by adding to the thousands already signed up.

The “This is What Justice Looks Like” project launches today as a forum in which activists can share their definitions of justice in the form of text, image, and video in an online collage on the campaign website. The series debuts with videos from activists in Haiti, the Philippines, South Africa, Syria, and more. Contributors are encouraged to visualize what justice looks like harnessing their power and imagination.

“Imagine, one billion women releasing their stories, dancing and speaking out at the places where they need justice, where they need an end to violence against women and girls. Join us – Rise, Release, Dance!” said One Billion Rising Director Monique Wilson.

The One Billion Rising for Justice Events Map will illustrate the worldwide scope of the movement through a searchable map that includes events planned for the 2014 Rising. Organizers are encouraged to add their events to the map to spread the word about their events and be counted among the Rising. This year, they will have the additional ability to add photos, video links and more information than last year, utilizing the map for maximum public awareness and reach.

Visit the expanded site, a fully featured campaign platform for activists all over the world:

REGISTER Your Event on the One Billion Rising For Justice map

WATCH “This is What Justice Looks Like” Videos

READ: the First in Our New Blog Series by Zillah Eisenstein: “Imagine A World With Justice”

SHARE “What Justice Looks Like” to you via video, words, song, art, or poetry

MEET New Global Coordinators

READ The Latest Press Release

CONNECT With Activists all over the world

Justice begins when we speak, release, and acknowledge the truth in solidarity and community.

JOIN US and help create revolutionary justice!

Rise. Release. Dance.

Tomorrow in NYC: Malalai Joya in Conversation with Eve Ensler – WATCH ONLINE

There is a select amount of tickets available for Saturday’s benefit event with Afghan activist Malalai Joya and Eve Ensler in NYC.

BUY Tickets >

For our activists around the world, we will be making the program available to watch live online at vday.org/livestream.

RISE4JUSTICE: Malalai Joya in Conversation with Eve Ensler
Saturday, October 5
6:30 – 8:30pm ET
(Doors open at 6:00pm)
Deepak Homebase at ABC Carpet & Home, 888 Broadway at E. 19 Street, NYC

TICKETS:

$25* General Admission available at vday.org/mj
$10* V-Day Activist rate, please email rsvp@vday.org

BUY Tickets >

WATCH Live Online >

*100% of the proceeds will go to the Defense Committee for Malalai Joya. This event is part of Malalai Joya’s 2013 U.S. Tour, sponsored by the Afghan Women’s Mission and the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC). malalaijoya.com