V-Day Blog Archive

YOU’RE INVITED! Join Rosario Dawson & Bottega Veneta for ‘Fashion’s Night Out’ Benefiting V-Day

V-Board Member Rosario Dawson & Bottega Veneta Team Up To Support V-Day for ‘Fashion’s Night Out’ in NYC!

V-Board Member Rosario Dawson is teaming up with Bottega Veneta for a special cocktail party to raise money for V-Day, the worldwide activist movement to end violence against women and girls, and to celebrate the second annual Fashion’s Night Out in New York City.

Fashion’s Night Out, a worldwide initiative to celebrate fashion and support local economies will take place from 6pm – 11pm on September 10th, 2010. Bottega Veneta will be donating 10% of sales from this evening to V-Day.

WHO: Rosario Dawson & Bottega Veneta
WHEN: Friday, September 10, 2010 6:00pm – 11pm
WHERE: Bottega Veneta, 699 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10022

Space is limited, so please RSVP by calling 646-292-5885

U.N. Congo Report Offers New View on Genocide (The New York Times)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/28/world/africa/28congo.html?_r=1&scp=2&s…

By HOWARD W. FRENCH

A forthcoming United Nations report on 10 years of extraordinary violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo bluntly challenges the conventional history of events there after the 1994 Rwandan genocide, charging that invading troops from Rwanda and their rebel allies killed tens of thousands of members of the Hutu ethnic group, including many civilians.

The 545-page report on 600 of the country’s most serious reported atrocities raises the question of whether Rwanda could be found guilty of genocide against Hutu during the war in neighboring Congo, but says international courts would need to rule on individual cases.

In 1994, more than 800,000 people, predominantly members of the ethnic Tutsi group in Rwanda, were slaughtered by the Hutu. When a Tutsi-led government seized power in Rwanda, Hutu militias fled along with Hutu civilians across the border to Congo, then known as Zaire. Rwanda invaded to pursue them, aided by a Congolese rebel force the report also implicates in the massacres.

While Rwanda and Congolese rebel forces have always claimed that they attacked Hutu militias who were sheltered among civilians, the United Nations report documents deliberate reprisal attacks on civilians.

The report says that the apparently systematic nature of the massacres “suggests that the numerous deaths cannot be attributed to the hazards of war or seen as equating to collateral damage.” It continues, “The majority of the victims were children, women, elderly people and the sick, who were often undernourished and posed no threat to the attacking forces.”

The existence of the United Nations document, titled Democratic Republic of Congo, 1993-2003, was first reported by the French daily newspaper Le Monde. But participants in the drafting of the report have described its progress and difficulties over a period of seven months to The New York Times, which obtained the most recent version of the report.

The Rwandan government responded angrily to the report, calling it “outrageous.” The topic is extremely delicate for the government, which has built its legitimacy on its history of combating the genocide in Rwanda. Political figures there have been accused of perpetuating a “genocide ideology” for making claims that are similar to the report’s.

“It is immoral and unacceptable that the United Nations, an organization that failed outright to prevent genocide in Rwanda and the subsequent refugees crisis that is the direct cause for so much suffering in Congo and Rwanda, now accuses the army that stopped the genocide of committing atrocities in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” said Ben Rutsinga of the Office of the Government Spokesperson.

The release of the report appears to have been delayed in part over fears of the reaction of the Rwandan government, which has long enjoyed strong diplomatic support from the United States and Britain. There is concern in the United Nations that Rwanda might end its participation in peacekeeping operations in retaliation for the report.

“No one was naive enough to think that inspecting mass graves in which Rwandan troops were involved would make Kigali happy, but we have shared the draft with them,” said a senior official at the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights in Geneva, which oversaw the investigation. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the findings had not been officially released.

He said: “Voices have said, ‘Can’t we just delete the genocide references? Isn’t this going to cause a lot more difficulties in the region?’ But these voices have not carried the day.”

The United Nations document breaks the history of 10 years of violence in Congo into several periods. It begins with the final years of the three-decade rule of President Mobutu Sese Seko, marked by attacks on a Tutsi minority in the country’s far east, and violent raids on Rwandan territory from United Nations-administered refugee camps that housed roughly a million Hutu who had fled Rwanda after the genocide. These raids were conducted by elements of the defeated Hutu national army, and the Hutu Interahamwe militia, both principally involved in the genocide in Rwanda.

The report also covers two other time periods: the Second Congolese War, from 1998 to 2001, when the armies of eight African states vied for control of the country, and 2001 to 2003, when foreign armies partially withdrew, leaving a tentative peace. Congo continues to suffer major atrocities, including the rape of thousands of women by armed groups.

The report contains a chilling, detailed accounting of the breakup of Hutu refugee camps in eastern Zaire at the start of the war in October 1996, followed by the pursuit of hundreds of thousands of Hutu refugees across the country’s vast hinterland by teams of Rwandan soldiers and their Zairean rebel surrogates, the Alliance des Forces Democratiques pour la Liberation du Congo. Those forces were led by Laurent Kabila, who took over as president the next year, and who was the father of Congo’s current president, Joseph Kabila.

The report presents repeated examples of times when teams of Rwandan soldiers and their Congolese rebel allies lured Hutu refugees with promises they would be repatriated to Rwanda, only to massacre them.

In one such episode, advancing Congolese rebel fighters and Rwandan troops summoned refugees to a village center, telling them they would be treated to meat from a slaughtered cow to strengthen them for their trek back to Rwanda. As the Hutu began to register their names by prefecture of origin, a whistle sounded and soldiers opened fire on them, killing between 500 and 800 refugees, the report said.

In other instances, as survivors scrambled desperately through thick rain forest in a country as large as Western Europe, extermination teams laid ambush along strategic roadways and forest paths, making no distinction between men, women and children as they killed them.

Although the report does detail attacks when there were military targets, notably at Tingi Tingi, a Hutu camp in Maniema Province, such targets are extremely rare in the report.

An element of the report that could help determine any judgment of genocide concerns the treatment of native Congolese Hutu. The report suggests they were singled out for elimination along with Hutu refugees from Rwanda and Burundi. The report asserts that there was no effort to make a distinction between militia and civilians, noting a “tendency to put all Hutu people together and ‘tar them with the same brush.’ “

Pascal Kambale, a prominent longtime Congolese human rights lawyer who was consulted by the United Nations investigators, said: “The ex-F.A.R. fighters were said to be hiding behind the refugee populations, but the truth is that the attackers were targeting both the Rwandan Hutus and the Congolese Hutus,” referring to the Hutu-led Rwandan militia, F.A.R. in its French initials. “Entire families were killed, whole villages were burned, and in my view this remains the most heinous crime that happened during these 10 years.”

Timothy Longman, the director of the African Studies Center at Boston University, said that people in eastern Congo had long charged they were victims, too. “The reason it didn’t get more attention is that it contradicted the narrative of the Rwandan Popular Front as the ‘good group’ that stopped the genocide in Rwanda,” he said.

As early as 1997, the United Nations began investigations into reports of possible crimes against humanity involving extermination of Hutu populations by the Congolese rebel forces and their Rwandan backers, but Laurent Kabila, as president, refused access to areas where atrocities were believed to have been committed, and the investigation was abandoned. A senior United Nations official said that the investigation was given new life when three mass graves were discovered in North Kivu Province by United Nations workers in 2005.

“Yes, this is stupendously overdue,” the official said. “But Laurent Kabila had been killed, there was a peace process and a new government in place in the Congo, and I guess you could say that’s when the U.N. woke and said, ‘Hmm, we can accomplish something here.’ “

Commemorating Katrina, Celebrating the Gulf South: An Update from Katrina Warriors

It’s been five years since the Gulf Region was ravaged by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Much has been said about the impact both had on the Gulf South community – homelessness, unemployment, health problems, environmental catastrophe, trauma, sexual violence. Today, in spite of the transformational work of community activists, there is still a strong current of despair, and the recent BP spill has added yet another layer to an already deep burden for the people of the Gulf South to bear.

We celebrate our V-Day activists who have worked hard to help our sisters in the Gulf South – Katrina Warriors. We were honored and proud to host V-Day’s tenth anniversary, our largest event to date, in the city of New Orleans. The event brought international attention to the issues facing women and girls in post-Katrina New Orleans, and we were able to leave over $1 million in the region. With money raised from the event, V-Day established the V TO THE TENTH SPOTLIGHT fund to award one-time grants to groups and individuals working to ensure an end to the physical, economic and environmental violence against women and girls in New Orleans and the Gulf South.

On this, the fifth anniversary of Katrina, let’s remember the good news – the many beautiful and amazing ways in which people showed up for each other and gave back.

We asked some of our V TO THE TENTH awards recipients, Katrina Warriors, to update us about their work over the last five years, and we hope that V-Day activists will support their efforts:

Kathy Randels and ArtSpot
Kathy Randels, Artistic Director of ArtSpot Productions, has been on tour this summer with a site-specific performance piece she directed and began working on before Katrina about the cultural extinction faced by Southeast Louisianans due to the loss of precious wetlands. Loup Garou, a collaboration between ArtSpot and another New Orleans company Mondo Bizarro, tells the tale of a Cajun werewolf whose genetically inherited condition has been exacerbated by Louisiana’s unhealthy relationship to the oil industry. The piece began as a character in 2006’s Beneath the Strata/Disappearing; it premiered as a solo performance in October 2009; and this summer was brought to Serbia, the Catskills, Western Massachusetts and Tennessee. A tour throughout Southeast Louisiana, where our people are hurting the most, is planned for Spring 2011.

Earlier this spring, ArtSpot premiered a new performance entitled Go Ye Therefore… This collaboration with Ashé Cultural Arts Center examines among other things the missionary native dynamic that has heightened in post-Katrina New Orleans, and seeks to promote racial healing through the personal stories of Randels and fellow performer Rebecca Mwase. Other work over the last five years includes the ongoing Drama Club at the Louisiana Correctional Institute for women, founded in 1996, and the iROC (Individuals Relating and Overcoming Conflict) program at McMain High School. iROC is a program that grew out of a project presented with 13 young women at V-Day’s Red Tent in the Superdome during the 2008 V-Day ten-year anniversary V TO THE TENTH. The students were deeply awakened by the V-Day experience and the legacy of their work has continued and grown over the last three years. To support and find out more about Kathy and ArtSpot’s work, please visit www.artspotproductions.org.

Asali DeVan Ecclesiastes
In the five years since Katrina, I have concentrated my efforts on family, friends, and neighbors. Before the flood, I spent most of my time organizing among artists, educators and other activists. With the flood, I realized that those people were already the empowered one. The already had resources and avenues to achieve resources. But many of the people closest to me, saw one of their few, if not only options for obtaining resources in me. This is great for when a girl needs to feel needed, but can imaginably grow weary–especially when you know the true capacity of the folks you’re surrounded by.

So, while I’m still working with artists, educators, and activists–I produced an art & activism festival in 2006, teach classes on spoken word & social justice at Tulane University, Chair the Youth Committee of the Historic Treme Cultural Alliance, directed Emotional Creature and A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant & a Prayer at the Ashé Cultural Arts Center, am producing the Tremé Bi-centennial Festival for the N. O. Museum of African American Art, and am publishing my first book of poetry this month–I work even longer and harder at making sure my mom and brothers are working at getting better, at making sure Ms. Marion and Mama Rukiya are getting along, at making sure Papa Lloyd takes his medicine and sees his daughter and that Baba Jerome at least listens to those who may disagree with him. I make sure my kids eat right, read enough, write well, and serve others. I make sure my house is neat (something I never used to do!) and that my husband and I use our love for the greater benefit of everyone else that we love.

-Asali

Women With a Vision, Inc.
Women With a Vision, Inc. is currently working on our newest project NO Justice which is an organizing and advocacy initiative. The goal of NO Justice is to end the criminalization of sex work under Louisiana Statute 14:89, Solicitation of Crime Against Nature (SCAN). Those charged with and prosecuted under this law are disproportionately poor women of color who have been even more marginalized in post-Katrina New Orleans. Most of these women are struggling with homelessness, drug and alcohol addiction, decreased access to healthcare and cycling in and out of the criminal justice system.

Moving Forward: Our Plan

• Raise awareness of the daily struggles, injustices, humiliation, and economic hardships, women with felony convictions of SCAN experience.
• Reduce women’s vulnerability to violence, HIV infection, and substance abuse with comprehensive prevention services and support of self-care.
• Document the experiences and stories of women who have been convicted under this statue, and those who are currently at risk for entering into the criminal justice system.
• Mobilize our communities to transform the criminal justice system from one that focuses on incarceration and punishment of street-based sex workers to one that fosters healing, self-care, harm reduction, and self-sufficiency.
• Work with our legal team to explore the feasibility of a constitutional challenge to the statute.

All of the services we provide are free of charge. If you would like to support the work and mission of Women With A Vision Inc. please visit our website and make a donation www.wwav-no.org. We are located at 215 North Jeff Davis Parkway, New Orleans, LA 70119.

Mos Chukma Arts As Healing Institute, New Orleans
At this 5th year anniversary Mos Chukma Arts As Healing Institute has completed our 4-year core program at the Dr. King Charter School, still the only school open in the Lower 9th Ward, New Orleans. The work we have done with students pre-K through 10th grade has been transformative and successful, as attested to by the students themselves, their teachers and parents. Our program is non-traditional and addresses the mental health needs of our students, most of whom are survivors of Katrina. The development of this program has evolved over many years in my work as an educator of at risk youth and my work as a crisis and trauma specialist on Indian reservations. Here in New Orleans I took the essential components of my trauma work and, along with training my staff, designed classes using the arts (drawing, painting, ceramics, dance, theater) for the healing of trauma (anxiety, disassociation, distrust, insomnia, nightmares, depression, inability to focus and concentrate, violence and self-destructive behavior).

Having completed our 4-year core program, we are now ready to train others in this work, interning them here and at other schools and communities. We have more than ten thousand people diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in LA. , and no large-scale response for recovery. This training will work in two ways: first, the high school students and young adults will become engaged with the arts as healing as they learn to implement this program, thus experiencing their own recovery. This training will bring skills in conflict resolution, communication, mind/body/spirit integration and the arts for expression and re-patterning. The second component for recovery is the economy derived from paying myself, my staff and the interns, which supports their commitment and completion for the 2-year certification.

An art Center here is needed for this big work. A friend has designed a blown concrete geodesic dome on a floating platform (the pumps down here have yet to be made right) Principal, Dr. Doris Hicks, has agreed to let us erect this dome in the back field of our school. The erection of the dome will be part of our math and science classes, and erected by students. The budget for the Art Center is about $20,000.

Thank you for this opportunity to express our deep gratitude to be a part of the recovery of this amazing community and the children. We appreciate the opportunity to tell about our program and to ask for help and support from like-minded artists, visionaries and healers.

Welfare Rights Organization (WRO)
After hurricane Katrina of 2005, the Welfare Rights Organization was destroyed and all members were scattered throughout many states. WRO returned to New Orleans in 2006 to pick up the pieces of the community destroyed. People were displaced which created a serious hardship. Families were struggling to return home to no avail. There was nothing to connect to in the community. WRO in its rebuilding efforts were able to seek funding to start a Twenty Four Hour Crisis Line to relocate with displaced families.

For this crisis line we developed a questionnaire survey. This survey was to collect information on the needs of our displaced families. Due to those needs we organized an Emergency Assistance Program to help families to cope with the horrific devastation of hurricane Katrina. Evaluation of that program determined the need assessment of families returning home. Therefore, WRO organized and secured a grant for Emergency Assistance to help families who were struggling with high utility bills and back utility payments. The evaluation of that program determined the need to continue the Emergency Assistance Program and couple it with an Organizing Training component to provide them tools to not to live for one day, but live for the rest of their life.

At present we are also doing dialogue training on Race, Class, and Katrina with the Unitaria Universalist Church members. Our Emergency Assistance / Training Program is a continuing daily operation of WRO. We also provide a REALITY CHECK TV show that deals with community issues and concerns, such as hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill disaster.

And Still I Rise,
Viola F. Washington

WATCH Eve on Democracy NOW! Discussing “Swimming Upstream” & Congo

On Thursday, August 26, V-Day Founder/Artistic Director Eve Ensler appeared on Democracy NOW! to discuss the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the two special performances of Swimming Upstream in New Orleans and New York City, and the connection between New Orleans, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Haiti and V-Day’s work to end violence against women and girls in those areas.

WATCH Swimming Upstream: Eve Ensler Marks Fifth Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina With Performances of New Play >

BUY TICKETS for Swimming Upstream in New Orleans and New York City >

In addition, Eve reads her piece Congo Cancer, a widely read article that appeared in The Guardian about her illness and how it relates to the widespread violence against women in Congo.

WATCH Eve Ensler Reads “Congo Cancer: My Cancer is Arbitrary Congo’s Atrocities Are Very Deliberate” >

READ Congo Cancer by Eve Ensler >

Interview with Eve Ensler on the Recent Rape of Over 150 Women in the DRC (BBC The World Report)

WIN 2 TICKETS To “Swimming Upstream” In New Orleans or New York!

V-Day is giving away tickets to upcoming NYC and New Orleans shows of Swimming Upstream! Five years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf South, Swimming Upstream is a stunning performance telling stories of the storm and those who survived. Facilitated by Eve Ensler and AsheCultural Arts Center’s Executive Director and Founder Carol Bebelle, Swimming Upstream has been hailed by Variety as a “work of power and poetry”.

Written by 16 New Orleans women, the performance premiered in April 2008 at V-Day’s “V To The Tenth”celebration and enjoyed a subsequent sold-out run in Atlanta in November 2008. Swimming Upstream is a powerful theatrical production that tells the raw and soulful stories of women who lived through the flood with grace, rage and great resiliency, punctuated by a flair for storytelling, humor and music that comes from being New Orleanian.

Now you have a chance to win 2 tickets to one of the limited performances in New Orleans or New York!

HERE’S HOW TO ENTER:
(Please limit your entries to 3 per day)

Step 1 – Go to Twitter and if you don’t already have an account there, set one up. It’s free. Then follow V-Day. Go to http://www.twitter.com/VDayorg and click on the ‘Follow’ button that appears under our profile. If you’re already following us on Twitter, you can skip this step — you don’t need to un-follow and then re-follow.

Step 2 – Write out the following tweet and tell us which show you’re entering for by including the correlating hashtag at the end of your tweet.

To enter for New York tickets, tweet:

@VDayOrg giveaway free tix to Swimming Upstream NOLA+NYC!RT to win + check our FB page to increase chances!http://bit.ly/d5K5FZ #NYC#SUS

To enter for New Orleans tickets, tweet:

@VDayOrg giveaway free tix to Swimming Upstream NOLA+NYC!RT to win + check our FB page to increase chances!http://bit.ly/d5K5FZ #NOLA#SUS

Step 3 – To increase your chances of being picked, become V-Day’s fan on Facebook by joining our page at: http://bit.ly/d5K5FZ, then find and comment on our post about the giveaway! IN YOUR COMMENT, BE SURE TO INDICATE WHICH SHOW YOU’D LIKE TO ATTEND! If you are already a fan, comment on the post and share it with your friends — and stay eligible by only commenting once a day on the post!

Step 4 – That’s it! You’re entered to win. We hope you’ll share this contest with your friends, and most of all that you will come to see this powerful, important performance on September 10th and 13th in New Orleans and New York. See you there!

Twitter winners will be picked at random once a day using Sorteie.
Facebook winners will be picked at random once a day using Random.org.

Travel costs to and from the show are not included in this promotion.

Tony Award Winner LaChanze Joins Cast of “Swimming Upstream” in New Orleans & NYC

Tony Award Winner LaChanze Joins Fellow Tony Award Winner Shirley Knight & Original New Orleans Cast, Directed by Award-winning Playwright Eve Ensler

V-Day is pleased to announce that renowned actor/singer LaChanze, best known for her Tony award winning performance in Broadway’s The Color Purple has joined the cast of Swimming Upstream, September 10th at The Mahalia Jackson Theater in New Orleans and September 13th at The Apollo Theater in New York City. The two-night only performances will commemorate the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and pay tribute to the women of New Orleans and the Gulf South.

Swimming Upstream, produced by V-Day, Ashé Cultural Arts Center and The Women Donors Network, premiered in April 2008 at V-Day’s “V To The Tenth” celebration and enjoyed a subsequent sold-out run in Atlanta in November 2008. Written by 16 New Orleanian women, Swimming Upstream is a powerful theatrical production that tells the raw and soulful stories of women who lived through the flood with grace, rage and great resiliency, punctuated by a flair for story telling, humor and music that comes from being New Orleanian.

Directed by award winning playwright and V-Day Founder Eve Ensler, Swimming Upstream features performances by Troi Bechet, Asali Njeri DeVan, Anne-Liese Juge Fox, Karen-kaia Livers and singers Michaela A. Harrison, Leslie Blackshear Smith with Tony Award winners Shirley Knight and LaChanze.* Due to an unforeseen scheduling change, previously announced cast member Kerry Washington will no longer be appearing.

With generous support from the Rockefeller Foundation and The Culture Project.

Mahalia Jackson Theater – NEW ORLEANS, Friday, September 10
Ticket prices: $27.50, $37.50, $52.50

IN PERSON

in New Orleans at the Mahalia Jackson Theater Box Office, 801 N. Rampart Street
ONLINE at Ticketmaster >
BY PHONE call Ticketmaster 1-800-745-3000

Apollo Theater – NEW YORK CITY, Monday, September 13
Ticket prices: $28.50, $53.50, $103.50, $253.50*, $503.50*
*$253.50 & $503.50 tickets include entry into the Swimming Upstream after party with the cast at the Uptown Grand

ONLINE at Ticketmaster >
BY PHONE call Ticketmaster 1-800-745-3000
IN PERSON at the Apollo Box Office, 253 West 125th Street, New York City

*All performers pending scheduling

PAKISTAN DISASTER RELIEF: Help Us Keep Women & Their Families Safe

“I am exhausted, hoarse, brain drained. When will all this end? When will we be heard? I am sure the intense pain can’t be that invisible, or maybe the screams are too silent. Yes, I always have and always will shout loud for women and children, the recent floods in Pakistan have displaced millions, killed thousands. This land is hurting. The men are hurting. The women and children too are hurting. Livestock, crops, the foliage, the fields are all hurting, but who and what hurts more? Giving birth on rooftops surrounded by gushing water or on the helicopter floor? Being molested and raped in the dark corners of relief camps? Seeing your young child die of disease and hunger? Clothes soaked with dirty blood because you had no sanitary pads? Lack of privacy? Lack of underwear and lack of dignity? It’s all hurting. Way too much.”

Nighat Rizvi
AMAL Project Manager & V-Day Activist

Pakistan is experiencing the worst flooding in recorded history with more than 1,400 people feared dead, and according to the UN an estimated 20 million affected, a number exceeding the combined total of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake. As Monsoon rains continue, millions more will be left struggling while shortages of food, clean water, shelter and medicine persist.

V-Day is working closely with AMAL Human Development Network and longtime V-Day activist Nighat Rizvi on a project designed to bring urgently needed supplies to 500 families in extremely vulnerable priority areas such as Muzaffargarh, DG Khan, Mianwali, Kot Addu, Nowshehra, Swat and Charsada, among others.

The goal of the project, titled Responding to Women and Families Needs in Humanitarian Crisis Situation – A one month urgent request for funding is to contribute towards the reduction in gender base violence, food security and promotion of safe hygiene practices among women and their families in badly flood affected areas.

WE NEED YOUR HELP! In the face of such a massive natural disaster, women and children are at increased risk of sexual violence. Our sisters in Pakistan need our help now more then ever. PLEASE GIVE WHAT YOU CAN!

Any amount of money you can donate will help save lives by contributing to the supply of urgently needed kits that will provide essential food items, clean water, hygiene materials, clothing, sleeping bags and necessities for babies such as reusable diapers and baby suits.

JOIN V-DAY TODAY as we continue to support the activists on the ground working to keep women and their families safe in the most flood effected areas.

DONATE NOW >

VOTE For V-Day’s Own Jimmie Briggs for GQ’s Better Men Better World Search!

Jimmie Briggs, V-Men Outreach Advisor and Co-Founder/Executive Director of the Man Up Campaign is one of five finalists of the GQ magazine annual Better Men Better World Search.

Jimmie has been an avid V-Day supporter for years, assisting in the development and continued outreach for V-Men, a new V-Day program aimed at bringing the voices of men into the worldwide movement. V-Day is a proud supporter of Jimmie’s Man Up Campaign, a global campaign to activate youth to stop violence against women and girls through the universal platforms of sport, music, technology and the arts, providing innovative training, resources and support to youth informed initiatives.

The winner of The Better Men Better World Search will be chosen by popular vote and officially announced at The Gentlemen’s Ball in New York City. He will also be featured on a GQ promotional page and receive a $2,000 cash prize and $10,000 donated by Movado to the accredited charity of his choice.

CAST YOUR VOTE FOR JIMMIE BEFORE SEPTEMBER 30th! >

READ Jimmie’s V-Men Column >

I-VAWA: You Can Help End Violence Against Women And Girls!

V-Day joins Amnesty International USA, Women Thrive Worldwide, The National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence, and Family Violence Prevention Fund in strong support of the International Violence Against Women Act (I-VAWA). This is the first comprehensive piece of legislation in the United States aimed at ending violence against women and girls around the world and would consistently incorporate solutions for reducing violence against women into U.S. foreign assistance.

Specifically, I-VAWA would:

• Address violence against women and girls comprehensively, by supporting health, legal, economic, social, and humanitarian assistance sectors and incorporating violence prevention and response best practices into such programs.
• Alleviate poverty and increase the cost effectiveness of foreign assistance by investing in women.
• Define a clear mandate for Senior Officials in the Department of State and USAID for leadership, accountability and coordination in preventing and responding to violence against women and girls.
• Enable the U.S. government to develop a faster and more efficient response to violence against women in humanitarian emergencies and conflict-related situations.
• Build the effectiveness of overseas non-governmental organizations – particularly women’s non-governmental organizations – in addressing violence against women.

Simple Ways To Take Action!

Write an Op-Ed
Download Sample Template >

Spread the word! Inform your online community be it in Facebook, Myspace,
Twitter or on your Blog!
Download Sample Blog Post >

For information about the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2011 (VAWA – S.1925), click here >