Today, Eve begins her speaking tour in conjunction with the paperback release of her best-selling work I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World. The tour includes stops in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Santa Fe, NYC, Miami, Boston, and Washington, DC.
I Am an Emotional Creature, published by Villard, is made up of original monologues about and for girls from around the world and aims to inspire girls to take agency over their minds, bodies, hearts, and curiosities. Through rants, poetry, questions, and facts, we come to understand the universality of girls everywhere: their resiliency, their wildness, their pain, their fears, their secrets, and their triumphs.
In conjunction, V-Day developed V-Girls to engage young women in our “empowerment philanthropy” model, igniting their activism and providing them with a platform to amplify their voices. V-Girls is a growing, global network of girl activists and advocates empowering themselves and one another to create the change they imagine for the world. Through online discussion including our brand new blog, book clubs, and an academic curriculum, the V-Girls revolution has begun – join us!
Tickets are on sale now for the below events. Check out vday.org/vtour2011 for more details!
Monday, March 14th / Los Angeles, CA
12:30PM
Occidental College
Eve Speaks, book signing to follow Free event http://www.oxy.edu/x9117.xml
Thursday, March 17th / Santa Fe, NM
6:00PM
Garcia Street Books and the Inn and Spa at Loretto 2011 Meet the Author Series
Eve to read and speak, book signing to follow Free event http://garciastreetbooks.com/
V-Day is pleased to announce the launch of the new V-Girls Blog. The blog provides a platform for girls to speak out on girl-focused issues and news and share their unique voice. In addition to the V-girl activists, the V-Girls Action Team, a dynamic group of girls from around the word, will be sharing their thoughts and opinions and will lead the way for the future of V-Girls. Content will include videos, tweets, and blog posts from our girl reporters who will be interviewing Eve on her current book tour. Check the blog frequently for updates and videos!
What happens when women’s bodies become instruments for warfare?
In the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, records indicate that up to half a million women have been victims of sexual violence. For many, the trauma of the initial attack is compounded by social stigmas, leaving women isolated and marginalised.
On Wednesday’s Riz Khan we ask: What can be done to eradicate rape as a weapon of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo?
We are joined by world renowned feminist and activist, Eve Ensler, whose latest project “City of Joy” provides shelter and counselling to women of the DRC; and award-winning photojournalist, Marcus Bleasdale, who has spent nearly a decade covering the conflict there.
You can join the conversation. Watch the show live on Wednesday, March 2, at 1930GMT. Repeats can be seen on Thursday at 0430GMT, 0830GMT and 1430GMT.
Happiest V-Day 2011! Today I am filled with so much excitement, gratitude, pride. This year we have 1,500 events in 57 countries and all 50 of the United States. We have V-Day’s in places far and wide from Armenia to Peru, Angola to South Korea. We have a V-Day in Mongolia for the first time. We opened City of Joy, the most magnificent small village for women to come into their power in Bukavu, DRC. We have safe houses in Kenya, South Dakota, Haiti, Pakistan. We have a rapidly expanding V-Girls network. We are spotlighting Haiti and supporting an ambitious project directed and designed by our sisters in Haiti. We have thousands of V-Activists reaching millions of people. We have joy, anger, frustration, exhilaration, anticipation.
On this precious day, I wanted to thank you for doing what you do. I want to thank you for your leadership. Each one of you is leading the way for others, carving paths for women to walk in and creating a world for women and men to believe in. Thank you for believing with me in this vision that women can be free and empowered and safe. The opening of City of Joy was a huge opening for all of us, for this movement, and now is the time to go further. Egypt and Tunisia are once again proof that movements are what change the world.
For almost two months, the world has witnessed the true power and strength that dedicated, bold, and courageous people can have over their lives, their governments, and their countries. The revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt have changed their nations forever, and are important and beautiful reminders that when people trust and find their voices, when they stand for their truth and commit to going all the way, when they put aside their fears and embrace their own self worth, the world will change. The Tunisian and Egyptian people have given the world an incredible gift, a model to all people everywhere. It is up to us now to continue this revolution, to embrace this paradigm, to stand up for our neighbors and ourselves. Now is the time for those that have been repressed, those who have had their rights, their economic futures, their freedoms robbed, to rise and speak out. And as we have learned from these recent events, revolution begins with one courageous soul, and can become a gorgeous contagion.
V-Day stands in solidarity with our sisters and brothers in Tunisia and Egypt, with people everywhere who are reclaiming their power and voice, and bringing the revolution home.
Valentine’s Day came early for Jurate Kazickas at a celebration in early February in the Democratic Republic of Congo marking the opening of the City of Joy, a recovery sanctuary for rape survivors. Eve Ensler was radiant at the center of it all.
BUKAVU, Democratic Republic of Congo (WOMENSENEWS)–The opening ceremonies here for the City of Joy were full of singing, dancing, cheers and signs of hope–in the smiling faces of women who had survived rape–of being safe at last.
The City of Joy is a project to empower the women of the Democratic Republic of Congo, centered around a compound of buildings that the women envisioned for themselves: small houses for privacy, meeting rooms, open fields for gardens and children’s playgrounds.
A six-month program for its 90 residents will include psychosocial treatment, literacy and life skills and vocational training. The goal is to create a movement of female leaders for a peaceful future in the country.
“This is a turning point for the women of the Congo,” said Eve Ensler, founder of V-Day, the international organization against gender-based violence, and the guiding light behind the program. “The City of Joy will be a gathering place for the women to find their voices, their vision and their power. And when the women find their power, all of the Congo will change.”
Ensler, who was wearing her hair cropped short after coming through chemotherapy treatments, called the opening day “the happiest day of my life.”
During the 13 years of the ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, it is estimated that over 500,000 women have been raped and tortured in the most brutal and savage way, resulting in serious medical and psychological suffering.
Women and young girls have endured kidnapping, sexual slavery and forced prostitution. Due to the stigma attached to rape, those who survive are often too ashamed to go back to their villages and have no way to support themselves and their children.
Chance to Speak Out
The Feb. 4 ceremony–which drew a contingent of foreign women, including myself–gave some of the women a chance to speak out. Several women stood at a microphone before the multitude of guests listing their demands for respect and equal rights.
Melanne Verveer, the U.S. State Department’s global ambassador for women’s rights was there. So were representatives from UNICEF (which donated some of the construction costs) and other philanthropists. A few Hollywood American movie stars were also among those who listened.
Speaking in strong voices and without notes (Ensler said the women had practiced their speeches for days), wearing T-shirts that read “stop raping our greatest resource,” they demanded a legal system that would protect their rights and bring rapists to justice. They demanded drug treatment for HIV/AIDS and support for children born of rape.
The ceremony was packed from early morning to late night with visits and briefings, as well as a performance of Ensler’s play “The Vagina Monologues” in French.
Many Congolese men in the audience, which included local politicians, seemed uncomfortable at first, but by the end they were laughing and cheering.
Foreign visitors came and went to the events in a motorcade of a dozen jeeps that bounced through the potholed roads and insanely crowded streets of Bukavu, packed with scooters, cows, women balancing jugs of water on their heads and little girls hunched over from heavy bunches of firewood that they carried with head straps.
Mukwege Was There
Dr. Denis Mukwege, the charismatic and humble founder of Panzi Hospital, which takes care of hundreds of women and girl survivors of rape and torture every year, many of whom are infected with the HIV/AIDS virus, was also on the scene.
He is a hero to V-Day supporters.
“When I shook his hand, I felt as if I was in the presence of the Pope,” said one awe-struck woman.
“Oh, what a different world it would be if he were Pope,” said another.
Stephen Lewis, a former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations who is a benefactor of the hospital, vowed he would pressure the world governments to make HIV/AIDS drugs affordable and available. The women cheered and waved their hands, their fingers spread into a “V.”
“I thought this trip would be very hard for me emotionally,” one visitor said. “But when you are around these women, you can feel their strength and see the determination in their faces to change their lives. There is such a feeling of hope.”
Seeing the joyful exuberance of the women it was hard to imagine the horrors they have endured. Mama Bachu, the matriarch of the City of Joy, noted that the women were still vulnerable, not only to ongoing rapes, but also to domestic violence and denial of basic rights.
But it was a time for celebration and the woman everyone wanted to be near and hug was Ensler.
“Feel the energy,” a radiant Ensler said at one point, as she stood in a vast field at the center of the compound while giving a tour of the facilities. She envisioned classes for the women in dance, karate, yoga and jewelry making, a radio station, a computer center, even a sauna.
Funding Limitations
But inadequate funding limits the outlook for many of the rape survivors who can’t come to the City of Joy. Little of the $17 million U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledged 16 months ago to fight sexual violence has been delivered to the area.
“You know, money is not the answer,” a U.S. government official at the ceremonies told Women’s eNews, saying the volatile politics over control of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s vast resources and the after effects of the Rwandan genocide, which has created a serious humanitarian crisis, had to be resolved.
The City of Joy was designed pro bono by the Chicago architecture firm Stephen Rankin Associates, with funding from V-Day, private donations, Panzi Foundation and UNICEF.
And it’s easy to find other opportunities to invest in women here.
One afternoon Ensler took a number of us to the countryside to visit the Green Mamas, an organization of rape survivors. The women were farming a small parcel of land, planting green beans and cassava, feeding goats with leaves and then using goat waste to fertilize the land. They use the produce to feed their families and sell it in the markets.
The women came dancing and singing down the road to greet us, carrying a banner for the Women’s Association for Conservation and Sustainable Development.
Their leader, Mama Germaine Buttendwa, told Ensler how she wished they had more fields to grow more crops closer to their villages so the women did not have to walk so many miles to work.
“How much does an acre cost?” Ensler asked.
“Four thousand dollars,” said Buttendwa.
Ensler made eye contact with one of her V-day board members from San Francisco who smiled and nodded.
“Done.”
When Buttendwa told the news to the women, they broke into joyous cheers.
The sun was setting. The women picked up their shovels and hoes to make the long walk home. Soon, that walk would not be not so long.
On Friday, February 4th, the opening of the City of Joy brought thousands of Congolese women and men, local women’s groups and grassroots activists, regional dignitaries including South Kivu Governor Marcellin Cishambo Ruhoya, V-Day Congo Director/Director of City of Joy Christine Schuler Deschryver, Panzi Hospital’s Dr. Denis Mukwege, City of Joy construction crew members, and residents and staff of City of Joy together with national and international activists, politicians and supporters, including V-Day Founder Eve Ensler, UN Messenger of Peace and V-Day supporter Charlize Theron, U.S. Ambassador on Global Women’s Issues Melanne Verveer, U.S. Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, UN Special Envoy Margot Wallström, UNICEF DRC Representative a.i. Philippe Heffinck, V-Day Board Members Rosario Dawson, Carole Black, Pat Mitchell, Emily Scott Pottruck, Amy Rao, and Susan Celia Swan (V-Day’s Managing Director), V-Day Supporters Dylan McDermott, Naomi Klein, and Thandie Newton, Congolese Ambassador to the U.S. Faida Mitifu, AIDS Free World Co-Founder Stephen Lewis, and V-Day staff including Managing Director – Campaigns & Development Cecile Lipworth, Programs & Development Director Purva Panday Cullman, Europe Director Karin Heisecke, and Director of Operations Anthony Montentieri. During the ceremony, Christine Schuler Deschryver was presented with the inaugural “Turning Pain To Power” award.
This incredible and diverse celebration marks the next chapter in V-Day’s ongoing global campaign, STOP RAPING OUR GREATEST RESOURCE: Power to the Women and Girls of the DRC, and commences the creation of a sustainable path towards the health and empowerment of Congolese women, providing a powerful new platform to turn their pain to power, and become leaders who will steer Eastern Congo’s destiny towards peace.
Starting with the first group, City of Joy will provide up to 180 Congolese women a year with 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.
For the last three years, you, our V-Day activists around the world, have taken this issue of violence against women and girls in DRC to your friends, family, neighbors, and communities, raising international awareness and over one million dollars for the STOP RAPING OUR GREATEST RESOURCE campaign and the City of Joy. Through the Congo Spotlight Campaign alone, V-Day organizers around the world came together to raise over $500,000 for City of Joy, with thousands more women, men, girls, and boys showing support by joining V-Day’s V-Wall for Congo and letting the women and girls of DRC know that they are not forgotten. It is through your donations, your time, your energy, and your commitment to end the violence that has lead us to this momentous occasion, and so we share this great Vagina Victory with you!
Please keep checking vday.org over the next few weeks as we post more about this opening celebration, including more photos and video shot over the opening weekend.
This Valentine’s Day, show your love for that special person in your life by supporting the global movement to end violence against women and girls. Make a donation to V-Day on behalf of your loved ones and V-Day will send a specially designed 2011 Valentine’s Day V-Card letting them know of their unique gift in their honor.
The V-Gift will be used to address the most critical issues of violence against women and girls around the world.
To send a V-Card on the donate page, check the box next to “Donate on behalf of a loved one?” labeled “Yes, I would like to send a V-Day e-card” and fill in the rest of the information to finish designing your gift.
City of Joy Opening Ceremony
February 4-5, 2011
Bukavu, DRC
Photos by Paula Allen for V-Day
Women builders of the City of Joy walk to the opening
Women builders of the City of approach the City of Joy grounds
Women coming to the opening
Women builders of the City of Joy hold a sign celebrating their work
A V-Man attends the opening
V-Day Founder Eve Ensler at the entrance of the City of Joy to greet guests
Women builders of the City of Joy
V-Board members Jennifer Buffet, Carole Black and Pat Mitchell
V-Day Founder Eve Ensler, Governor of South Kivu, and V-Day Congo Director/Director of City of Joy Christine Schuler-Deschryver at the ribbon cutting ceremony for the City of Joy
V-Day Founder Eve Ensler, Governor of South Kivu, and V-Day Congo Director/Director of City of Joy Christine Schuler-Deschryver at the ribbon cutting ceremony for the City of Joy
Women at Panzi welcome the V-Day delegation and Stephen Lewis of AIDS Free World
The crowd sings and dances
V-Day Founder Eve Ensler with women at Panzi
Mama Bachu, Program Director of City of Joy, at Panzi Hospital
V-Board member Rosario Dawson dances with Mama Bachu and women at Panzi
V-Day Managing Director Susan Swan at the City of Joy. This room, when finished, will house the tech center.
V-Day supporter Lisa Schejola, V-Board member Rosario Dawson, V-Day France Director Marie Cecile Renauld, V-Day Managing Director Susan Swan and V-Day Managing Director of Campaigns and Development Cecile Lipworth in a bedroom at the City of Joy
V-Board member Rosario Dawson with the Green Mamas
The Green Mamas
V-Day Congo Director/Director of City of Joy Christine Schuler Deschryver, V-Day Supporter Thandie Newton, Eve Ensler, UN Messenger of Peace and V-Day Supporter Charlize Theron, V-Board Member Rosario Dawson
Dr. Denis Mukwege of the Panzi Hospital and Fondation Panzi and UN Messenger of Peace and V-Day supporter Charlize Theron
City of Joy Program Director Mama Bachu, V-Day Congo Director/Director of City of Joy Christine Schuler Deschryver, V-Day Founder Eve Ensler
Women attending the City of Joy opening ceremony
Dr. Denis Mukwege of the Panzi Hospital and Fondation Panzi and V-Day Congo Director/Director of City of Joy Christine Schuler Deschryver
V-Day supporter Deb Wetherby, V-Day Board Member Emily Scott Pottruck, V-Day supporter Lisa Schejola Akin at the opening ceremony
V-Day Board Member Rosario Dawson and V-Day Supporter Thandie Newton on stage to present V-Day Congo Director/Director of City of Joy Christine Schuler Deschryver with the inaugural Turning Pain To Power award
UN Messenger of Peace and V-Day Supporter Charlize Theron
Governor of South Kivu
Women builders of the City of Joy dancing at the opening
Women walking to the opening ceremony
Joyous at the Panzi Hospital
Stephen Lewis of AIDS Free World being welcomed at Panzi Hospital
V-Day Founder Eve Ensler and woman dancing during the opening festivities
Women builders of the City of Joy dancing and celebrating
V-Day Board Member Amy Rao during the opening events
BUKAVU, Democratic Republic of Congo — Eve Ensler has an audacious plan.
For years, diplomats, aid workers, academics and government officials here have been vexed almost to the point of paralysis about how to attack this country’s staggering problem of sexual violence, in which hundreds of thousands of women have been raped, many quite sadistically, by the various armed groups who haunt the hills of eastern Congo.
Sending in more troops has compounded the problem. United Nations peacekeepers have failed to stop it. Would reforming the Congolese military work? Building up the Congolese state? Pushing harder to regulate so-called conflict minerals to starve the rebels of an income?
For Ms. Ensler, the feminist playwright who wrote “The Vagina Monologues” and who has worked closely with Congolese women, the answer was simple.
“You build an army of women,” she said. “And when you have enough women in power, they take over the government and they make different decisions. You’ll see. They’ll say ‘Uh-uh, we’re not taking this any longer,’ and they’ll put an end to this rape problem fast.”
Over the weekend, Ms. Ensler took the first step toward building this army: the opening of a base here in Bukavu called City of Joy.
The gleaming new compound of brick homes, big classrooms, courtyards and verandas will be a campus where small groups of Congolese women, most of them rape victims, will be groomed to become leaders in their communities so they can eventually rise up and, Ms. Ensler hopes, change the sclerotic politics of this country. They will take courses in self-defense, computers and human rights; learn trades and farming; try to exorcise their traumas with therapy sessions and dance; and then return to their home villages to empower others.
The center, built partly by the hands of the women themselves, cost around $1 million. Unicef contributed a substantial amount, and the rest was raised from foundations and private donors by Ms. Ensler’s advocacy group, V-Day. Google is donating a computer center.
It is a gutsy concept, to invest this heavily in a small group of mostly illiterate women — about 180 leadership recruits per year — in the hope that they will catalyze social change.
But Ms. Ensler has faced long odds before, encouraging rape victims in Afghanistan, Bosnia and other war zones to speak out and become leaders.
“This could be a turning point,” said Stephen Lewis, a former Unicef official whose private foundation is helping City of Joy. “There’s been growing international concern about what’s happening in Congo, but up until now that hasn’t amounted to anything on the ground. Maybe this is the moment where women on the ground show they can turn this around.”
Eastern Congo is one of the poorest and most dysfunctional places on earth, but it is also one of the most beautiful, a land of sculptured green mountains and deep, clear lakes and trees upon trees. It is teeming with riches: gold, diamonds, timber, copper, tin and more. And though the people here, especially the women, have been brutally abused for years — many have had assault rifles thrust inside them, others raped with chunks of wood and left incontinent and sterile for life — their spirits have hardly been crushed.
When City of Joy officially opened Friday, hundreds of women, most of them rape victims, thumped on drums and sang at the top of their lungs. They wore black T-shirts that read, “Stop the rape of our most precious resource.” It seemed that the army of women Ms. Ensler envisioned was mustering in front of her eyes. Some even danced with the shovels and cement-encrusted trowels that they used to build the City of Joy.
It was an upbeat moment in a country that has had few. The legacy of brutality and exploitation goes back to the 1880s, when King Leopold II of Belgium claimed Congo as a colony and essentially enslaved the population to obtain piles of ivory and rubber.
In the mid-1990s, the country sank to new depths when a civil war broke out and neighboring nations jumped in, arming this or that rebel group in order to get their hands on this or that gold or diamond mine. Millions died. Although the other African armies eventually withdrew, many of the rebel groups never disbanded, exploiting the fact that Congo is incredibly large and the state incredibly weak.
These armed groups have to a striking degree vented their rage against women. Sadistic rape — sometimes of men and boys as well — has become a distinctive feature of the violence here, sometimes to terrorize civilians, sometimes for no apparent strategic purpose.
Draw a line in almost any direction from Bukavu and you will hit a village where countless women have been brutalized.
Just last month, in the nearby town of Fizi, dozens of women were raped by Congolese Army soldiers. Congolese authorities took the unusual step of arresting some of the officers involved, including a colonel, but few really believe that will make a difference. The United Nations has an enormous peacekeeping operation in Congo, but even villages near the peacekeepers’ bases have been hit.
The government, which has done little to address the problem, sent a high-level delegation to the opening of City of Joy. As the dignitaries arrived, hundreds of children lined the road, their toes squishing in the mud. Police officers patrolled with rusty rifles and ill-fitting helmets sitting crookedly on their heads. Pakistani peacekeepers stood in their jeeps, fingers on the trigger.
Ms. Ensler came up with the idea for the center about three years ago after hearing from Congolese women that they wanted a safe place where they could learn skills. While some of the center’s alumnae will return to their villages, others will carry out the mission in other ways.
“I don’t want to go back to my village and get raped again,” said Jane Mukoninwa, who had been gang-raped twice and will be in the first class of leadership recruits. “I want to learn to read and write so I can stay in Bukavu.”
She added: “I’m angry. And if I can get some skills, I can be an advocate.”
On Saturday, the women gave Ms. Ensler a spirited send-off. They surprised her with a gift they bought, a wooden carving of a mother and child, and pressed around her, dancing.
They sang: “Why did you accept to carry us? We will never leave you to the end.”
Today, Eve begins her speaking tour in conjunction with the paperback release of her best-selling work I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World. The tour includes stops in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Santa Fe, NYC, Miami, Boston, and Washington, DC.
V-Day is pleased to announce the launch of the new V-Girls Blog. The blog provides a platform for girls to speak out on girl-focused issues and news and share their unique voice. In addition to the V-girl activists, the V-Girls Action Team, a dynamic group of girls from around the word, will be sharing their thoughts and opinions and will lead the way for the future of V-Girls. Content will include videos, tweets, and blog posts from our girl reporters who will be interviewing Eve on her current book tour. Check the blog frequently for updates and videos!
Happiest V-Day 2011! Today I am filled with so much excitement, gratitude, pride. This year we have 1,500 events in 57 countries and all 50 of the United States. We have V-Day’s in places far and wide from Armenia to Peru, Angola to South Korea. We have a V-Day in Mongolia for the first time. We opened City of Joy, the most magnificent small village for women to come into their power in Bukavu, DRC. We have safe houses in Kenya, South Dakota, Haiti, Pakistan. We have a rapidly expanding V-Girls network. We are spotlighting Haiti and supporting an ambitious project directed and designed by our sisters in Haiti. We have thousands of V-Activists reaching millions of people. We have joy, anger, frustration, exhilaration, anticipation.
On Friday, February 4th, the opening of the City of Joy brought thousands of Congolese women and men, local women’s groups and grassroots activists, regional dignitaries including South Kivu Governor Marcellin Cishambo Ruhoya, V-Day Congo Director/Director of City of Joy Christine Schuler Deschryver, Panzi Hospital’s Dr. Denis Mukwege, City of Joy construction crew members, and residents and staff of City of Joy together with national and international activists, politicians and supporters, including V-Day Founder Eve Ensler, UN Messenger of Peace and V-Day supporter Charlize Theron, U.S. Ambassador on Global Women’s Issues Melanne Verveer, U.S. Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, UN Special Envoy Margot Wallström, UNICEF DRC Representative a.i. Philippe Heffinck, V-Day Board Members Rosario Dawson, Carole Black, Pat Mitchell, Emily Scott Pottruck, Amy Rao, and Susan Celia Swan (V-Day’s Managing Director), V-Day Supporters Dylan McDermott, Naomi Klein, and Thandie Newton, Congolese Ambassador to the U.S. Faida Mitifu, AIDS Free World Co-Founder Stephen Lewis, and V-Day staff including Managing Director – Campaigns & Development Cecile Lipworth, Programs & Development Director Purva Panday Cullman, Europe Director Karin Heisecke, and Director of Operations Anthony Montentieri. During the ceremony, Christine Schuler Deschryver was presented with the inaugural “Turning Pain To Power” award.
