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April 11-12 Marks the One-Year Anniversary of V TO THE TENTH!

4/10/2009

April 11-12 Marks the One-Year Anniversary of V TO THE TENTH!

One year ago - April 11 and 12, 2008, we celebrated V-Day's ten-year anniversary, V TO THE TENTH, at the New Orleans Arena and Louisiana Superdome. To commemorate this incredible event, V-Day has created a short video taken during the weekend's festivities.

VIEW Video >

The women of New Orleans and the Gulf South - Katrina Warriors - have
survived the fall out of global warming, failure of public structures, racism, economic hardship, and domestic abuse. All of these are pieces of the story of violence that continues to impact women here in this country and around the world.

To honor these women, their strength and resilience, V-Day chose the City of New Orleans to host V-Day's largest event to date and to celebrate ten years of ending violence against women and girls.

Over 30,000 people attended the two-day celebration. The Coastal Women Coming Home Project brought 1200 women displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita home for the weekend with support from V-Day. Thousands more traveled from out of state and country for events that featured over 125 speakers, over 40 stars, a choir of 200, and over 800 volunteers.

V-Day transformed the Superdome into SUPERLOVE - a place to heal, gather, celebrate and activate. Made possible by hundreds of volunteers from local New Orleans groups and throughout the country, SUPERLOVE featured numerous caring lounges, available free of charge to thousands of women from the Gulf South and included restorative yoga, massage, medical testing, healing circles, makeovers, and more.

The Superdome was the stage for the premiere staged reading of Swimming Upstream, a play which tells the raw, lyrical, soulful stories of women who have lived through the flood with grace, rage, humor and great resiliency. The piece, which has since debuted in Atlanta, Georgia to great acclaim, was written by a group of 16 local New Orleanian artists in partnership with the Ashé Cultural Arts Center, V-Day and Eve Ensler.

The anniversary celebrations ended with a star-studded, sold out performance of The Vagina Monologues at the New Orleans Arena, featuring actors Jennifer Beals, Rosario Dawson, Jane Fonda, Ali Larter, Liz Mikel, Kerry Washington and singers Faith Hill, Jennifer Hudson, Charmaine Neville, the Voices of New Orleans Gospel Choir, and many more.

The events brought international attention to the region, and raised over $700,000 for groups in the region working to end violence against women and girls. Though the celebrations are over, the work to end violence against women in New Orleans and the Gulf South is ongoing. V-Day will continue to work with women on the ground until the violence stops.

V TO THE TENTH celebrated V-Day's victories and ushered in the next ten years where together we will raise the stakes, go further, go deeper, increase the power and CHANGE THE STORY OF WOMEN.

We're thrilled so many of you were there with us - enjoy the video!

CLICK HERE To View Video >

Click here for more on V TO THE TENTH >

V-Moment Expands

Over the past eleven years, the V-Day movement has grown, from one event in New York City, to over 4000 events annually in over 120 countries and all 50 of the United States. As V-Day grows we want to ensure that those in the movement to end violence against women and girls remain connected and in touch with issues facing women all over the world.

V-Day is pleased to announce the expanded V-Moment on vday.org. The V-Moment will feature Vagina Warriors from all over the world who are speaking out about issues affecting women in their countries. Eve will continue to post as well.

Check back often and tell your friends! The V-Moment will be updated frequently and we will soon have the ability for users to leave comments!

Visit The New V-Moment >

NEW V-Men Column by Jared Miller

I've always been a fighter and protector at my core, and I cannot tolerate injustice of any kind towards a woman. Fortunately, I had a father that fostered that kind of character in me, which I am quite grateful for. In high school I was always looking for a fight, typically for the sake of some girl's honor. In my twenties I was the guy the female bar tenders called on when a girl was being harassed. I would gladly jump across the bar and deal with any man that had the indecency to disrespect a woman. My motives were pure, but the methodology was obviously lacking, and ultimately landed me in jail on numerous occasions.

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