V-Day 2021

 Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

For V-Day 2021, one additional V-Day platform was appended to the vast global movement, to end violence against women and girls, initiated in 1998, by Eve Ensler, author, playwright and activist.  Indeed, V-Day (Voices) 2021 specifically targets the Voices of Black Women. 

V-Day (Voices) 2021 is a project curated by the poet Ajat Monet, who sent out a call for submissions, addressed to Black women worldwide, interested in sharing pieces, speaking out against violence directed at women. Poems, monologues and other pieces will then be compiled into one showcase piece, in the Fall of 2021.  

V-Day (Voices) has thus become part of the 2021 V-Day action that includes One-BillionRising-Garden Rising campaigns and events (1); City of Joy, a shelter, serving up to 90 women at once, escaping violence in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo; and all the V-Day-inspired local USA events, where women gather (or tune-in on a pandemic year), to read and/or watch performances of Eve Ensler’s earth-shaking play The Vagina Monogues (2001).

Below, a 2021 YouTube video of a fabulous animated version of the V-day-One Billion Rising anthem Break the Chain, a song written by Tena Clark, with music by Tena Clark and Tim Heintz, choreographed by Debbie Allen. In non-pandemic years, since 2013, Break the Chain has spread like wildfire worldwide, on V-Day, complete with hundreds of scheduled Flash Mob events each year, such as the Shake Toronto event, V-Girls in South Africa, or the One Billion Rising, 5000-people event at Pariser Platz, in Berlin Germany on Feb 14 2013.  

One Billion rising 2021 - Rising Gardens

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(1) One billion corresponds to the  staggering figure, representing the number of women victims of violence worldwide 

References

City of Joy  https://www.cityofjoycongo.org/splash/

Ensler, E. (2001) Vagina Monologues. New York, NY: Ballantine Books.

Ensler, E. (2004) The Good Body. New York, NY: Villard Books (Random House).

Ensler, E. (2005) Vagina Warriors. New York, NY: Bulfinch Press (Hachette Book Group).

Ensler, E. (2010) Emotional Creature. New York, NY: Villard Books Random House).

Ensler, E. (2013) In the Body of the World. London, UK: Metropolitan Books (Macmillan Publishers).

Ensler, E. (2014) In the Body of the World. London, UK: Picador Paper. (Macmillan Publishers).

Ensler, E. (2019) The Apology. London, UK: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Ensler,E. (Jan. 7 2020) The profound power of an authentic apology – TED Talk https://youtu.be/gQ-0oR3C1UM

One-Billion Rising 2021: Garden Rising Campaign.  https://www.onebillionrising.org/about/campaign/

V-Day.org (Eve Ensler) https://vday.org/news-alerts/press/eveensler.html  

V-Day.org Staff (nov. 19, 2012) V-Day's One Billion Rising Campaign Unveils New Song and Music Video: "Break the Chain". https://www.vday.org/node/2996.html

V-Day.org – What is One-Billion Rising? https://www.vday.org/one-billion-rising/what-is-one-billion-rising/

V-Spot - https://vspot.vday.org/

Voices. https://voices.vday.org/

Ensler, E. (website) https://www.eveensler.org/ 

Happy V-day! RISE RESIST UNITE

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

"Twenty years ago, Eve Ensler’s play The Vagina Monologues gave birth to V-Day, a global activist movement to end violence against all women and girls (cisgender, transgender, and gender non-conforming). 

Since 1998, The Vagina Monologues and other works have been performed across the world by local V-Day activists, raising over $100 million dollars for grassroots anti-violence groups, rape crisis centers, domestic violence shelters, and safe houses in places like Kenya and Afghanistan. V-Day supports and launched the City of Joy, a revolutionary center for women survivors of gender violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has graduated over 1000 women leaders. 

Activists look at the intersection of class, race, gender, environmental destruction, imperialism, militarism, patriarchy, poverty, and war, as women face abuse and exploitation across layers of systematic and societal oppression, with the most marginalized and excluded often facing increased levels of violence. 

In 2013, V-Day gave birth to One Billion Rising - the largest mass action to demand an end to violence against women in history. V-Day and One Billion Rising are a crucial part of the global fight to stop gender-based violence through attacking the silence — public and private — that allows violence against women to continue. 

With ingenuity and determination, V-Day activists around the world are tirelessly working to end harassment, rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation and sex slavery." [Extracted from www.VDay.org - RISE, RESIST, UNITE]

References
Eve Ensler
http://www.eveensler.org/

The Vagina Monologues

http://web.mit.edu/dvp/Public/TVMScript2008.pdf

Unitl the Violence Stops

 https://vimeo.com/vday 

One Billion Rising

https://www.onebillionrising.org/
#OnebillionRising
https://twitter.com/hashtag/1billionrising?lang=en 
VDay Sacramento.org - Rise Resist unite
http://www.vdaysacramento.org/ 

Happy V-Day to all!

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Today is V-Day 2015 – A global movement to end violence against women and girls, that is, a movement targeting rape, incest, female genital mutilation (FGM), and sex slavery, arising out of Eve Ensler’s famous play The Vagina Monologues.

The V-Day non-profit organization was founded, in 1998, in NYC, following a benefit performance of the play that raised 250,000 USD in a single evening!

The rest is history! Every year, performances of the play are staged on February 14^th, with proceeds benefitting shelters, and anti-violence programs, for women and girls, survivors of violence. The organization has raised more than 100 million USD, in 200 countries, in 48 languages, benefitting more than 13,000 organizations against violence –using the play (Royalty free) and other creative and artistic performances as a catalyst for action and organization.

In 2015, the VDay movement includes a dance, drum and rise movement launched in 2003: The One Billion Rising -- 4 Revolution, 4Justice, 4Women’s Rights, depending on location, in the bid to stop violence again women and girls, and through them, the harshest inequities of the world.  The One Billion number stands for a shocking statistic: one billion women will experience violence in the world during their life time, that is, 1 in 3 women worldwide.

Check out your local area for events to break the chain of violence, to Dance! Drum! and Rise!
Below, the official video of the One Billion Rising song and choreography performed worldwide that will perhaps inspire you!

Maldives (official) http://youtu.be/F2uTqLQVFko

And One Billion Rising around the world..… !!....

In San Francisco http://youtu.be/WufjSyE_rK8

 In Bhutan: http://youtu.be/QcVqRIJFjK4

In Chicago: http://youtu.be/WEsKjqGBdk8

In Kinshasa (Congo) http://youtu.be/u4YJZ2NB4Vk

References

Eve Ensler http://www.eveensler.org/

Ensler, E. (2014) O.P.C (Obsessive Political Correctness). Directed by Pesha Rudnick.

Ensler, E. (2011) Emotional Creature: The secret lives of girls around the world. New York, NY Villard Books.

Ensler, E. (2007) Insecure at last: A political memoir. New York, NY: Villard Books.

Ensler, E. (2005) The Good Body. New York, NY: Villard Books

Ensler, E. (2001) The Vagina Monologues. New York, NY: Villard Books.

Epstein, A. and V. Farrel (2003) V-Day: Until the violence stops. Lifetime Television. 73 minutes.
Vday : http://www.vday.org/
Onbillionrising: http://www.onebillionrising.org/

Breaking the male code: After Steubenville, a call to action: http://www.vday.org/node/3054.html#.VN-Y2PnF_ts