During V-Season 2012, V-Day held two special Cocktails & Conversation events in Los Angeles and New York City. The evenings featured an update from Eve on the graduation of the first class at the City of Joy in the DRC, and V-Day’s 2012 season of events which featured over 5,400 V-Day benefits in over 50 countries and all 50 of the United States.
Los Angeles – The evening was hosted by V-Day Board members Carole Black, Eve, Pat Mitchell, Susan Celia Swan, Charlize Theron, and Kerry Washington along with Jessica Alba, Dylan McDermott, Lily Tomlin, and Jane Wagner.
New York City – The evening was hosted by V-Day supporter Lela Goren and V-Day Board members Eve, Katherine McFate, Lisa Schejola Akin, and Susan Celia Swan.
V-Day Founder/Artistic Director Eve Ensler is currently in Bukavu, DRC for the graduation of City of Joy’s second class of women which will take place on August 24. Here’s an update from Eve on the ground:
Greetings from Bukavu. Outside there is the sound of cicadas and low conversation and dogs howling in the distance. I have just taken a bath and washed off layers of dust as it is dry season here which means when we drove back this afternoon we were using windshield wipers and headlights(during the day) to try to find our way through a reddish dust storm. Dust everywhere, in the fish on the side of the road, in the flour, in the ragged shoes, in the mouths of children.
I am going to try and describe to you what happened today at City of Joy, what I witnessed and experienced. I am not sure I have the language to describe it as what is happening there feels so utterly new andparadigm shifting. I fear familiar words could reduce it or minimalize or sentimentalize it. Perhaps it is best to share the shards of language breaking in me.
I know the opposite of Trauma is Love.
The only way to heal trauma is through love.
I saw this in the faces of 90 girls
Girls of all sizes and colors and shapes
Girls who were raped before they had their period
Girls who were pregnant at 12
Girls raped who gave birth to triplets from rape
And after they were dead
Girl who was raped at ten and then sent away into the forest
Exiled by her parents to join with a band of other children wanderers
For years living off roots and berries
Only to come upon her parents later exiled too
Now in the woods
Came upon them as soldiers came upon them too
And demanded her father rape her and when he didn’t
They killed him and then raped and killed her mother
And raped her too.
She was mad, crazy when she arrived at City of Joy
She was out of her mind
Now she has been stabilized
Now she knows there are others
And she wasn’t wrong
And she has value
And can write her name
Now she is someone
And she is someone who will help
The others
No longer afraid
I saw love today
In action
In hips, legs, bums moving
In joy, in gratitude, in grace
In the healing of wounds and memories
I saw love in the way the City Of Joy staff
Danced, held, fed, praised, taught and pushed
the ones that still needed encouragement
in the mad frenetic tumultuous screams
That came as they opened their gifts of material
For panges, in the bellow of singing
That exploded over the dusty day
In the roses, in the bunnies who had given
Birth to bunnies and the goats and sheep
Who were about to give birth in new built
Pens next to the compost next to a well being
Dug which had just found water.
I saw love in how we all just stood suspended
Watching a mama bunny breast feed 5 little
Ones with eyes still glued shut.
How much love there was for those bunnies.
I saw love in the quiet patient computer teacher, Prince
In the hands of Tatiana who was teaching
styles and versions of wildly colored hand crafted bags
I saw love in Mama Christine who was followed
The entire day by 2 little girls who
she had dressed and perfumed and loved
back to life for weeks
In the way she knew every single survivors story
And how they started and where they were
And her firmness was a protection
Her style and beauty a destination
And her professionalism the hope of a future
Not torn by chaos and corruption and colonialism
I saw love in the way the whole city loved her
In the way friendship builds things and makes things
And continues on even as the scary ass soldiers prowl the streets
With their mad hungry eyes and terrifying machine guns
Even as the water runs out and the electricity dies and the roads
Turn to dust and the security warnings periodically flash through
The blackberry
I saw love. It’s not what we thought.
We don’t even know
It’s the synergy Jane was talking about
Jane who was once Jeanne
Who was raped til her insides fell out
Jane who is Jesus rising
Is Joan of Arc and Che
The synergy she said,
“There are women here from all over Congo.
They are tired of the rapes and they are strong now.
They are angry and the time will come. That moment
And you will know then, Mama Ev what you and Mama
Christine and all the others have done. You will know then.”
Take action! Call and email your senators and representatives and urge them to oppose the current House version of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) reauthorization, and support the inclusive, bipartisan Senate version of this lifesaving legislation that protects ALL survivors.
We’re running out of time, Congress members will soon go home to campaign for re-election and anti-VAWA extremists are holding up the bill in hopes of either forcing acceptance of the House version or blocking reauthorization altogether.
The House bill 4970, or the “Adams Bill” is an unacceptable version of VAWA that imposes new reporting restrictions on immigrant survivors of violence as well as Native American women, communities of color, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender survivors.
We are urging all of our activists to take over the next weeks and during the August recess to call upon their members of Congress. Ask them to work with their colleagues to get the Senate version of VAWA approved NOW and sent to President Obama for his signature.
TAKE ACTION: The National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women has all phone numbers and sample emails available here.
On August 27 – 30, V-Day and CODEPINK activists will gather in Tampa, FL outside of The Republican National Convention to bring awareness to the way women’s rights are threatened worldwide–from anti-choice legislation to inappropriate rape jokes to economic inequality to war and occupation overseas that disproportionately affect women’s lives. Help encourage Republicans to honor women, to protect women’s rights, and protest war and occupation. JOIN US!
The US has cut military aid to Rwanda following accusations it is backing rebels in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.
The US state department says the funding – $200,000 (#128,000) – will be reallocated to other countries.
Rwanda has rejected reports by the UN and rights groups that it is supporting the rebels, including the M23 movement, in eastern DR Congo.
As a result of the fighting, 200,000 people have fled their homes.
Eastern DR Congo has been plagued by fighting since 1994, when more than a million ethnic Hutus crossed the border into DR Congo following the Rwandan genocide, in which some 800,000 people – mostly Tutsis – died.
Rwanda has twice invaded its much larger neighbour, saying it was trying to take action against Hutu rebels based in DR Congo. Uganda also sent troops into DR Congo during the 1997-2003 conflict.
The BBC’s Gabriel Gatehouse, on the Congo-Rwanda border, says although $200,000 is a tiny sum to cut, it is hugely symbolic.
It means Washington – Rwanda’s staunchest international defender – believes the government in Kigali is destabilising the region by supplying the rebels, our correspondent explains.
A recent UN report seen by the BBC accused Rwanda of backing the rebels.
The report cited Rwandan soldiers who had defected from Congolese rebel forces. They told the UN they had been trained in Rwanda under the pretext of joining the army, before being sent over the border to fight.
The Rwandan government denied the allegations.
The Congolese rebels who took up arms in April named themselves “M23” after a failed peace agreement signed with DR Congo’s government on 23 March three years ago.
Many of them are ethnic Tutsi – like the majority of Rwanda’s leadership.
Tell Congress they must get VAWA moving before they go on their July 4th vacation. Before the end of summer, Congress needs to send the President a strong, bipartisan Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) reauthorization bill that protects ALL survivors.
The United States House of Representatives bill 4970, or the “Adams Bill” is an unacceptable version of VAWA that imposes new reporting restrictions on immigrant survivors of violence as well as Native American women, communities of color, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender survivors. Although the bill passed in the Senate 68-31, it narrowly lost in the House 222-205.
We have too much at stake and doing nothing is not an option. We have 24 hours left, CONTACT your Senators and Representatives by phone, email or visit in-person at the DC or District Office.
For contact info, as well as sample letters and phone scripts check out the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women VAWA page at http://4vawa.org/
On Sunday, June 24th, we held a special V-Day fundraiser which included a benefit performance of Eve’s newest play Emotional Creature at Berkeley Rep, followed by Sunday Supper at the Hotel Shattuck Plaza with members of the cast, Eve, and Director Jo Bonney, and ending with an exciting outdoor community ritual “One Billion Rising Bay Area”, the launch of ONE BILLION RISING in Berkeley featuring dance, music, drumming, and more at the Civic Center Park in Berkeley.
This event was hosted by an incredible group of leaders from the Bay Area and around the country, including: Isabel Allende, Carole Black, Jo Bonney, Lisa Brown and Daniel Handler, Susie Tompkins Buell, Jennifer Buffett, Beth Dozoretz, Eve Ensler, Jodie, Evans, Jane Fonda, Anna and Rob McKay, Arlie and Adam Hochschild, Amanda Jones, Barb Jones, Beth Karpfinger, Frannie Kieschnick, Regina Kulik Scully, Gina Maya, Katherine McFate, Susie Medak, Pat Mitchell, Belinda Munoz, Julie Parish, Amy Rao, Lisa Schejola Akin, Emily Scott Pottruck, Dr. Jane Shaw, Andrea Dew Steele, Erin Strain, Susan Celia Swan, Darian Swig, Roselyne Swig, Deb Wetherby, and Marsha Williams.
It was a magnificent afternoon of theater, friends, and activism, with an unstoppable energy full of love and emotion. And now we are so pleased to share with you our newest online gallery from the event, featuring V-Day staff and supporters from around the Bay Area, as the Emotional Creature creative team, well as V-Day Board members Carole Black, Rosario Dawson, Jane Fonda, Katherine McFate, Pat Mitchell, Amy Rao, Lisa Schejola Akin, Emily Scott Pottruck, and Susan Celia Swan.
V-Day Board member Jane Fonda joined us on Sunday June 24th for our day of celebration and our annual V-Day Board meeting which preceded the events. Check out her blog about her “V-Day Weekend”:
I flew up to Berkeley Saturday knowing it would be an intense, inspiring, emotional weekend and I wasn’t disappointed. Eve Ensler, author of “The Vagina Monologues” (among many other pieces) and life-long activist, has gathered a board of directors that is off the charts in generosity, fierceness and fun. Missing from this board meeting were Sheryl Sandberg, Charlize Theron, Kerry Washington, Salma Hayek, Jennifer Buffett, Thandie Newton, and Cari Ross.
We were not only In Berkeley for a board meeting, but on Sunday, we were going to see Eve’s new play, “Emotional Creature.” More about this in a moment.
Today starting at 12pm ET, watch Eve give the keynote speech at the NOW Conference!
Watch LIVE online as Eve brings ONE BILLION RISING to the NOW community and shares why we are RISING on 2.14.13.
Eve joins a fantastic line up of speakers and honorees for NOW’s 16th Annual Conference, a three day event featuring workshops, breakout sessions, and guest speakers all discussing how we can “Energize! Organize! And Stop the War on Women.”
WATCH Eve online at www.now.org/live (beginning at 12:00 p.m. eastern, Friday, June 29)
“Endlessly appealing… Ensler appeals to the child at the heart of all of us in a rallying cry to save the world.” – San Jose Mercury News
“Infectious… with an evangelical zeal at times more befitting a revival meeting than a play.” – San Francisco Chronicle
“Dazzling… The acting was superb, raw and gutsy… Everyone should see this.” – Broadway World
On Friday, June 22nd, Eve’s new play Emotional Creature opened at The Berkeley Repertory Theater! The world premiere production will run in the Roda Theater until July 15th and is already a huge success with critics and theater goers alike. We invite you all to embrace your own emotional creature and bring your friends, daughters, mothers, and loved ones out to this fantastic theatrical experience!
I know the opposite of Trauma is Love.
Today starting at 12pm ET, watch Eve give the keynote speech at the