Author: V-Day

The Right/Write to Heal Initiative is a joint project of the Columbia Center for Justice and V-Day’s Beyond Incarceration Project. Through Right/Write to Heal, women share how they cope with the consequences of incarceration on themselves, their families and communities, with the goal of changing how people understand the impact of criminalization on women. Writing and storytelling are therapeutic interventions for people who have experienced loss and trauma, and can lead to healing, redemption, and intimacy when shared collectively and with others who have been impacted. The goal is to humanize the unique individual and collective experiences of women, particularly...

JOIN US, RISE IN 2024 As we write, One Billion Rising coordinators and activists and communities are planning hundreds of rising events, festivals and actions around the globe. They are escalating the call to #RiseForFreedom in response to the ongoing intensification of violence – rape, hate, exclusion, killing, discrimination, exploitation, abuse, wars, division, occupation and control. In response to the rapid rollback of rights to their bodies, minds and resources amidst the growing and unprecedented spread of fascism devastating our freedoms. Rise For Freedom is defining and reclaiming what FREEDOM means within solidarity, democracy, safety, equality, dignity and justice, and in the context...

WHEN THEY LEFT CITY OF JOY, EACH WOMAN LEFT WITH HER KEY, THE KEY TO HER LIFE: 2069 WOMEN HAVE GRADUATED FROM THE CITY OF JOY TO DATE Update from Christine Schuler Deschryver, Director of V-Day Congo and Co-Founder/Director of City of Joy Director: This week in Bukavu, 82 women graduated from the City of Joy. The six months of leadership training and healing from post-traumatic stress disorder served as a headlight that shone through the darkness created in each woman’s life. After her physical and mental destruction from an environment haunted by discrimination, subordination, patriarchy, religion, and culture, everything seemed hopeless. In our communities,...

UNTIL THE VIOLENCE STOPS V-Day is a movement that has worked for decades in war zones in places like Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan. We have been invited into regions that are typically ignored and made invisible to the western world, and - together with our sisters and survivors on the ground - have seen firsthand what war does to women and women's bodies, what it does to men, what it does to communities regardless of race, religion or geography, and what it does to our collective humanity. We know how rape and...

For over 25 years, V-Day’s work to end violence against women, gender expansive people, and girls has been situated at the intersection of ending war, racism, colonialism, imperialism, occupation, and climate injustice. Over our decades of work, we have stood in solidarity with women suffering the consequences of war in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kosovo, Iraq, Sudan, and Haiti. We know that war has a particularly deadly and disproportionate impact on women and children. We believe in a feminism that liberates all people from racist, capitalist, patriarchal terror. War is a tool of patriarchal violence and doesn’t solely dehumanize women but...

Conflict and escalating violence have displaced 6.9 million people in the Democratic Republic of Congo – a record high number that has impacted all 26 provinces of the country. According to the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration (IOM), 81% of internally displaced peoples live in Congo’s eastern region, which has been engulfed in a brutal proxy war for minerals for over 25 years. This displacement increases the prevalence of sexual violence, disease and hunger. Millions have died, and hundreds of thousands of women and girls have been raped and sexually tortured. These crimes are committed with near total impunity and, despite...

With gratitude Atlanta! Our Sunday, October 8 V25 gathering - AN EVENING OF RECKONING & RISING at The Carter Center to celebrate V’s book and V-Day’s 25th anniversary was a stunning success and raised over $80k for the City of Joy. Our deepest thanks to V-Day board members Pat Mitchell, Jane Fonda, Rosario Dawson and Maya Penn for leading the host committee and whose performances captivated the audience. With gratitude for our host committee: V (formerly Eve Ensler), Paige Alexander, Angie Allen, Nikki Noto Benitez, Sara Blakely, Sarah Cipperly, Tena Clark, Enid Draluck, Staci Fox, Pat Mitchell, Laura Turner Seydel, and Susan...

As a movement working to END VIOLENCE against women, girls, gender expansive people and the Earth, we oppose violence committed by ANYONE.   We do not believe violence is the solution in Israel or Palestine or ANYWHERE.   For violence to end, to preserve lives, we must return to the historical roots of oppression. The violence of decades of occupation, of apartheid, of dispossession.  The violence of the denial of the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people to be free – the freedom to move, learn, dream, travel, play, thrive, hope, aspire, live. Equally, and with dignity and peace. Like many groups and individuals around...

RAWA relief team in the earthquake affected areas of Herat On October 7, an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.3 on the Richter scale shook several districts of Heratو the Western province in Afghanistan. These villages belonged to the poorest and most destitute farmers, daily waged workers, and displaced families who had settled in these deserts and built mud-houses with empty hands and a lot of suffering and hardship. The reason for the irreparable damage is that most of these houses were made of mud without standards and were weak against earthquakes, so in the blink of an eye, a large...

Selling fast! An Evening of Reckoning & Rising with V, Rosario Dawson, Jane Fonda, Pat Mitchell, Maya Penn, Christine Schuler Deschryver & More to Benefit the City of Joy Visit vday.org/atlantaV25 for ticket info and to purchase Tickets are $50*, $500 and $1000. *We have a special discount of 25% off $50 tickets by using promo code ACTIVIST Proceeds to benefit City of Joy, a revolutionary center for women survivors of gender based violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Note: The $500 and $1000 tickets include admission to a pre-cocktail reception from 5:00-6:00 pm to honor Christine and the work of City of Joy in...