Below is a sample of the emails you can expect to receive when signed up to One Billion Rising.
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Activists around the world are planning their Risings and V-Day benefits, and the 16th class at City of Joy in the Democratic Republic of Congo is well underway. Here are recent October updates and news for upcoming events! JOIN Eve and Jane Fonda for a TEACH IN on Women & Climate This Thursday
That's why Jane Fonda, one of V-Day's Board members, began Fire Drill Fridays, an action to highlight the importance of taking decisive climate crisis action now. Jane will be protesting every Friday, for the next four months, in front of the U.S. Capitol, at 11 AM ET and demand action be taken to address the climate crisis. She will be joined by scientists, Indigenous leaders, community members, movement leaders, and experts. In addition to Jane Fonda’s weekly Friday action, she will also conduct a Thursday evening teach-in, covering various topics related to the climate crisis. While the climate crisis threatens everyone, vulnerable populations such as women, are threatened. JOIN Jane & Eve Join us in NYC for BE HEARD ON THE THIRD on 3 November!
ATTEND the event, visit for info & details OBR Bangladesh Premieres New Theme Song, AMI SHIKHA OBR Bangladesh commemorated their 2020 launch event with the premiere of a new theme song (in association with Colours FM 101.6). Entitled "Ami Shikha", it is an artistic reminder to their commitment to ending social inequality and violence against women.
One Billion Rising South Africa Coordinator Lucinda Evans Honored on BBC’S TOP 100 WOMEN OF 2019
"My hopes, as a Khoisan woman, are that we will one day be freed from violence against our bodies, and the bodies of our daughters, sisters, mothers and aunties. I hope that one day we will have a female president. For this, I will continue to advocate and rise in pain to power." WATCH what this award means to Lucinda Evans Why we SAY IT, STAGE IT
A new survey from the Association of American Universities reveals that almost one in four undergraduate college students have experienced sexual assault at 33 major universities. Released on 15 October 2019, it is the second one in recent years to document widespread sexual assault at public and private universities. These statistics remind us of why V-Day student activists produce The Vagina Monologues - and other artistic works - to raise and funds awareness to benefit centers and shelters that provide critical support for survivors everywhere. READ The Washington Post article about the report; READ the report. V-Day: Say It, Stage It – Produce a V-Day Benefit of “The Vagina Monologues” or “A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant, or a Prayer” as an Artistic Uprising at your college/university, in your community One Billion RISING: Revolution 2020 – RISE in your community, for your community City of Joy: Turning Pain to Power – Screen the Documentary, Support the Women in DR Congo        V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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ROSLYN SMITH JOINS V-DAY TEAM AS
Please join us in welcoming Roslyn Smith to the V-Day team. As Program Manager, Roz will oversee V-Day's new Beyond Incarceration project which will further expand and deepen V-Day's ongoing work with formerly incarcerated women and incarcerated women, engaging and educating activists throughout the US and worldwide in a dialogue around restorative justice. Roz brings her personal experience from long-term incarceration as a vehicle for her work as a criminal justice reform advocate. "As I think about both the roots of my involvement in violence and the issue of responsibility, I know that increasingly it is understood that people who cause harm have often been victims themselves of violence. I also read more and more about the recognition that prisons are mainly sites of punishment, not places designed to help people grow and find self-worth, develop the capacity to redirect their lives, and to confirm their humanity," said Roslyn. Roslyn obtained her Bachelor's degree while incarcerated and created curriculum and taught parenting classes for and with other mothers in prison. In addition, she worked with Puppies Behind Bars, a non-profit organization that trains incarcerated people to raise service dogs for veterans and first responders. She initiated the blog series for V-Day's 2019 Spotlight on Women in Prison, Detention Centers, and Formerly Incarcerated Women. A featured speaker in both academic and business settings, she has collaborated with the Osborne Association, Columbia University, the Brooklyn District Attorney Reentry Program and various other criminal justice reform groups. Roz was featured in the award-winning PBS film, "What I Want My Words To Do To You" that documents the writing workshop at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for women, conducted and led by Eve Ensler. Since her release after serving 39 years, she has devoted her time between her daughter and her advocacy work. Roz, we could not be more excited to have you joining the amazing V-team! We are honored and grateful to you for bringing your voice and vision to our shared work. DISPATCHES FROM BEYOND INCARCERATION BLOG LAUNCHES Today, we also announce Roz' newly expanded blog, Dispatches from Beyond Incarceration, where Roz will write an ongoing series about her experiences as a formerly incarcerated women, including short and long dispatches on prison reform and prison abolition, often highlighting news articles around the experiences of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women, pieces highlighting what she's thinking about, what she's worried about, including interviews with formerly incarcerated women, stories from prison, visions of a world without prison, how violence against women leads to women coming to prison and then the violence they experience there, all the while highlighting important data and facts that shed light on incarceration and our commitment to restorative justice models. You will hear from women whose lives have been profoundly impacted by the prison and detention system on issues as far ranging as: trauma and abuse; shackling; transgender experiences; dignity; health and mental health; experiences of long term inmates; the youth/school to prison pipeline; the experiences of mothers and children navigating the immigration system; higher education in prison; and reentry and technology. READ the first pieces –
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City of Joy Collection Launches in Honor of the World's Strongest Women
Photo Credit: Atong Atem On Monday, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Vlisco and the City of Joy honored the "World's Strongest Women" with the launch of a new collection of fabrics that symbolizes their recovery from rape and trauma, and their journey from pain to power. "The first thought that came to mind when I met the women of the City of Joy was, 'Is there anyone stronger than you?'" – Gabriela Sanchez y Sanchez de la Barquera, Vlisco print designer behind the collection Gabriela Sanchez y Sanchez de la Barquera traveled to Congo where she was awed by the strength of the women and their journey from suffering to a place of love and hope. The fabrics are marked by the words 'Love', 'Respect' and 'Strength' and reflect their healing and renewal through sisterhood, love and mutual respect.
The collection is made up of five printed super-wax fabric patterns in bold, bright patterns, created using the old techniques of wax printing. The fabric designs pay tribute to the vagina and the natural beauty of the Congo region. Profits from the sale of the collection will be donated by Vlisco to the City of Joy. "Taking part in this process has been a very positive experience for the women involved. They have been the driving force in the project and that is reflected in the vivacity and color of the fabrics and the originality of the designs. It's vital that the world's eyes are opened to the atrocities that are taking place here and it's beyond inspiring that the women who have suffered most are those brave enough to take a stand today." – Christine Schuler Deschryver, co-founder and director of City of Joy "We are so thrilled by this amazing project of Vlisco in collaboration with the amazing women at City of Joy. It's a project about healing, colour, life force and a celebration of women's bodies. It highlights the profound beauty of Congolese women who embody the rising energy of the new world. We thank Vlisco for their stunning fabrics and style but mainly for joining their creativity with the struggle to free the women of Congo from violence so they can shine in their true beauty and power." – Eve Ensler, V-Day and One Billion Rising Founder, Co-Founder City of Joy
Five African female designers, including former Fashion Scout Merit Award winner Tolu Coker, Aisha Ayensu founder and creative director of Christie Brown, recognised as a key player in the rise of contemporary African fashion, Bubu Ogisi creative director of contemporary womenswear brand Iamisigo, Ivory Coast-born Rebeccas Zoro from ready-to-wear brand Yhebe, and Nigerian Abiola Adeniran-Olusola who launched her eponymous fashion brand in 2017 after her studies in Paris. These revolutionary designers have been working with several City of Joy graduates to create personalized dresses that showcase the themes behind City of Joy and highlights the strength of the bond of sisterhood. The City of Joy collection is full of over 100 vibrant colors made with traditional Dutch wax printing and honors the strength and the journey of the women who have worked to move from a place of pain to one of love and healing. In addition, the fabrics highlight the orchid, a symbol of the deep turmoil that women face while the full bloom showcases the strength and beauty of the vagina. Other themes include the Congo River, representing the lush landscape, and the Bouquet, which depicts the vagina in a stark way and the flowers breathe back life and hope. The Congo theme highlights Dr. Denis Mukwege, founder of the Panzi Hospital and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. He is represented by the lion.
GIVE JOY
PURCHASE fabrics from the City of Joy collection TURN Pain to Power, DONATE to the City of Joy at CityOfJoyCongo.org/Donate With gratitude and love, from all of us at V-Day, One Billion Rising & City of Joy #UntilTheViolenceStops
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RAISE THE VIBRATION FOR 16 DAYS OF ACTIVISM (25 NOVEMBER – 10 DECEMBER), RISINGS LAUNCH GLOBALLY
From 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, to 10 December, Human Rights Day, 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence Campaign is a time to RISE and RAISE THE VIBRATION to end violence against all women and girls (cisgender, transgender, and those who hold fluid identities that are subject to gender-based violence). In honor of this day and to celebrate the One Billion Rising launches that have taken place and those that will launch today – including OBR South Asia, OBR Bangladesh, OBR Philippines, OBR Mexico, Congo, Swaziland and 17 countries in OBR Africa, we have news to share. We mark today with the release of two new art pieces by extraordinary artists whose work represents our global 2020 call for Action, Art, Connection, Imagination and Love. "WE ARE RISING", A NEW LIBERATION SONG, BY TAÍNA ASILI - RELEASED TODAY
Social justice artist Taína Asili has composed and written a liberation song – in collaboration with One Billon Rising, entitled “We Are Rising.” We are honored that Taína has created this new anthem for One Billion Rising. It is a call to action, to dance, to RISE. The song celebrates our collective energy, creative resistance, and solidarity as we RISE against the tides of violence against all women, climate crisis, racism and corporate greed. Executive Produced by Eve Ensler, Susan Celia Swan & Monique Wilson for One Billion Rising. "Music has always been the heartbeat of our movements for liberation. With "We Are Rising" I offer women around the world a new anthem to help us tap into the energy, strength, courage and wisdom needed to usher in a new era of justice and healing." – Taína Asili Taína is a New York based Puerto Rican singer, filmmaker, and activist whose work honors the tradition of her ancestors and carries themes of hope and liberation, which surges into one soulful and defiant voice. Listen, share, and spread the song, RAISE the vibration for freedom for women around the world. Together, We Are RISING. LISTEN to "We Are Rising" NEW! RAISE THE VIBRATION ART/POSTER DESIGNED BY ARTIST/ACTIVIST ALIXA GARCIA UNVEILED
"We are raising the vibration in the face of mediocrity, falsehood, greed, destruction, and separation. We are centralizing nature in this process and remembering that we are her. As our earth transforms, we transform with her, and just like the seed that has cracked open in the depth of the earth, we too have but only one direction to go." - Alixa Garcia DOWNLOAD the Raise the Vibration art/poster here. In 2020, together we RISE to free all women from sexual, physical, racial, economic, political, socio-cultural, ideological and climate crisis violence. We RISE to end rape, battery, incest, sexual harassment, female genital mutilation, sexual slavery and trafficking, child marriage, femicide, sexual, gender and reproductive oppression, and violence towards LGBTQIA+ communities. We RISE to end capitalism, colonization, racism, imperialism, climate catastrophe and war. RISE 2020, RAISE THE VIBRATION. RISE in your community, for your community. V-Day: Say It, Stage It – Produce a V-Day Benefit of “The Vagina Monologues” or “A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant, or a Prayer” as an Artistic Uprising at your college/university, in your community One Billion RISING: Revolution 2020 – RISE in your community, for your community City of Joy: Turning Pain to Power – Screen the Documentary, Support the Women in DR Congo We feel the energy of rising up, of resistance, of bold artistic energy and creativity coming forward from V-Day and One Billion Rising activists across the globe. At the City of Joy in Congo, 1294 women survivors have graduated, and the documentary film also entitled CITY OF JOY is available on Netflix, bringing a vast global audience their message of Turning Pain to Power.        V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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Raise the Vibration this Giving Tuesday
Support #VDay, the global activist movement to end violence against all women and girls (cisgender, transgender, and those who hold fluid identities that are subject to gender based violence). V-Day, One Billion Rising, & City of Joy activists everywhere are RAISING THE VIBRATION through Action, Art, Connection, Imagination and Love. As we write, activists are busy rehearsing for The Vagina Monologues, readying creative resistance actions and City of Joy screenings, and planning Risings in colleges, cities, communities and countries around the globe. At City of Joy in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the 16th class will graduate this month!
Activists are Rising against a rising tide of right-wing nationalism, white supremacy, fascism, tyranny, hatred of and fear of immigrants, misogyny, femicide, homophobia, transphobia, corporate greed and climate destruction. They are raising the stakes in 2020, further escalating the urgency with which we feel compelled to fight for gender, climate, economic and racial justice - and tirelessly working to end harassment, rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation and sex slavery.
In breathtaking solidarity, grassroots activists push boundaries and engage in dialogue through an intersectional lens, with art and activism always at the forefront. Your solidarity and support makes this movement possible! V-Day is a California 501(c)(3) public charity and is one of the Top-Rated organizations on both Charity Navigator and Guidestar.
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Eve Ensler's TED Talk "The Profound Power of An Authentic Apology" Out Today Just days after she delivered the talk, Eve Ensler's newest TED talk "The Profound Power of An Authentic Apology" has been released, one of the first videos coming out of TEDWomen 2019. Held in Palm Springs, the annual event was founded and is editorially directed by V-Day Board member and author of Dangerous Women Pat Mitchell. "For a few years now, we've been calling men out. It had to be done. But lately, I've been thinking–we need to do something even harder. We need to find a way, as my good friend Tony Porter says, to call them in." – Eve Ensler
From TED: Genuine apology goes beyond remorse, says legendary playwright Eve Ensler. In this frank, wrenching talk, she shares how she transformed her own experience of abuse into wisdom on what wrongdoers can do and say to truly repent -- and offers a four-step roadmap to help begin the process. (This talk contains mature content.) Eve's appearance at TED comes immediately following her tour of India and Taiwan where she made a series of appearances on behalf of The Apology and participated in One Billion Rising events and actions. While in India, Eve also completed a roundtable with feminist reporters resulting in a wave of media coverage and deep dialogue within the country about the book and the issues it raises. “I honestly think if we're going to undo patriarchy men have to lead this, because they are the people who benefit from it.” says Eve in an interview with photographer Howard Schatz. She spoke with outlets including Vogue India, Hindustan Times, National Herald, and more about the transformational quality of a genuine apology and the necessity of men to do the work of rising up against this violence and taking responsibility for their role in perpetuating patriarchal violence. Below are some inspiring takeaways: “What's changing? That is a deep concern of mine. We will call out, but if men are not using this as a moment to say, ‘I've got to investigate how I have been created in a toxic masculine world; do I even know what rape and abuse really is', how will we change?” said Eve to Dhamini Ratnam of The Hindustan Times. “The 31 years that my father has been dead, I have worked day in and day out to end violence against all women and girls. In that time, we have seen women break their silence, tell their stories, risk humiliation, attack and yet in all that time there has been no public apology. So, then I thought, why don't I write the words to myself, the words I long to hear,” said Ensler. "I wrote The Apology because in all the years of working in this movement, in all the recent cases of #MeToo, perhaps in 16,000 years of patriarchy, I had never heard a man make a public, thorough, authentic apology for sexual or physical abuse towards girls, boys or women. My father says in The Apology 'to be an apologist is to be a traitor to men. Once one man admits he knows it was wrong, the whole story of patriarchy begins to collapse.' Now is the time for men to become gender traitors, and begin the apology process." said Eve, for The Times of India The events ? led by One Billion Rising's Chi Hui-Jung, Kamla Bhasin, Abha Bahaiya, and Anthony Carlisle – were transformative and the dialogue to end violence against all women and girls is continuing throughout India. WATCH a recap
The Toolkit - created by Farah Tanis, a transnational Black feminist, human rights activist and co-founder and Executive Director of Black Women's Blueprint, the toolkit is designed to help survivors and their allies grapple with the idea of reckoning and apology. The Reading Guide – created by Bloomsbury Publishing Social Media - Follow the conversation around the book, follow The Apology on Instagram The Website - Building upon years of work with survivors, activists and anti-violence groups, V-Day launched theapologybook.net as an online space for readers, activists and survivors to process and explore the themes raised in the book, for perpetrators to begin their own processes of accountability and apology, and for survivors to write imagined apologies and offer themselves healing.        V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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Turn Pain to Power; Give JOY this Holiday Season As we near the end of the year, our hearts are full with the abundance of love that fuels our movement, led by survivors, youth, artists & activists in countries everywhere. Together, we are united in our fight to end violence against all women and girls (cisgender, transgender, and those who hold fluid identities that are subject to gender based violence) and we stand side by side in global solidarity until the violence stops. In breathtaking solidarity, women leaders in Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Kenya are pushing boundaries and creating spaces born from the vision of local women survivors where women and girls turn their pain into power. They are creating a world where women can thrive rather than merely survive. To send a V-Card on the donation pages, check the box next to "I'd like to make this contribution in honor or memory of someone" and then "I'd like to notify someone of this contribution," then fill in the rest of the information to finish designing your gift. Support their work this season. Give the gift of JOY, donate today: Raise the Vibration, Educate a Generation! City of Knowledge in Kabul
City of Knowledge (CKO), – formerly Promoting Women's Capability by Education Center – is an education center for girls and women in Kabul, Afghanistan where women turn their pain to power. Rising in the face of four decades of war that has left a huge population of Afghan women illiterate and several generations of women deprived of education, City of Knowledge is an education center for girls and women that offers courses in Computers, Science, Literacy, Arts, English, and Women's rights. Graduates go on to pursue university and the careers of their choice, becoming the future doctors, engineers, lawyers, scientists, artists, and technical experts of Afghanistan, and inspiring countless others to do the same. View the video (above) to get to know City of Knowledge. Donate today. Changing Culture, Educating Girls; the V-Day Safe House for the Girls in Narok, Kenya
Tasaru Ntomonok is a grassroots initiative that created and runs the V-Day Safe House for the Girls in the southern Rift Valley in Narok County, providing shelter and educating girls running away from “the cut” and early childhood marriage. Led by Agnes Pareyio, the founder of Tasaru Ntomonok, Chair of the Anti-FGM Board of Kenya, and UN Person of the Year for Kenya (2005), Agnes and her team bravely confront the cultural practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in the Maasai community in Kenya and have won many hard-earned victories, influencing community members to take on alternative rite of passage rituals, and educating women and men alike about the power of an educated girl. Each year, hundreds of girls' lives - and that of their families - are transformed because of their work and vision. LEARN more about the V-Day Safe House for the Girls & Agnes Pareyio. DONATE today, support their work. Turning Pain to Power, City of Joy in DR Congo
The City of Joy is a revolutionary leadership center for women survivors of gender violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is place where women turn their pain into power, a place that restores women's sense of agency over their lives as they learn real, practical life skills to feed their futures, and connects them to the global V-Day movement, one billion strong. From the return of warmth and joy into women's lives, to a reconnection to their bodies, to the feeling of empowerment each woman feels when she masters a new skill or acquires life-changing knowledge, the City of Joy gives women a platform to transform their pasts into fuel for a revolution of the mind, body, and community. Over 1380 women have graduated to date. Over 1380 women have been educated, healed, and nurtured. Since the beginning of the program, these women have released massive trauma and horrific memories. And they have experienced pure joy – dancing, singing, learning and leading in community, no longer stigmatized for being raped but instead acting as forces of energy and determination. Today, graduates are teachers, journalists, business entrepreneurs, initiators of collectives, restaurants owners, and farmers. They advocate on sexual violence, volunteer in a self-created recruiting network for new candidates at City of Joy. Some are students, immigration workers, tailors, and herbalists. And other graduates are employed in the V-World Farm. The list goes on. A woman who comes through the City of Joy is forever changed by it. She laughs more, she leads more, she gives more. LEARN more about City of Joy. GIVE Joy, donate today. JOIN US, support the urgent work to end violence against women and girls in Kabul, Narok and Bukavu. Your trust, generosity and vision make our movement possible! With all our V-love, Eve, Susan, Christine, Monique, Purva, Tony, Carl, Kristina, Leila, Roslyn, Anju & Swetha P.S. If your gift is already on its way, thank you! V-Day is a California 501(c)(3) public charity and is one of the Top-Rated organizations on both Charity Navigator and Guidestar. 31 December is the last day to make charitable donations in order to claim them on your 2019 tax return.        V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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In 2020, together we will RAISE THE VIBRATION through Action, Art, Connection, Imagination, and Love as survivors, activists, youth create V-Day benefits, One Billion Rising and Raise the Vibration creative resistance events across the planet. Together, we RISE to free all women (cisgender, transgender, and those who hold fluid identities) from sexual, physical, racial, economic, political, socio-cultural, ideological and climate crisis violence. RISE to end rape, battery, incest, sexual harassment, female genital mutilation, sexual slavery and trafficking, child marriage, femicide, sexual, gender and reproductive oppression, and violence towards LGBTQIA+ communities. RISE to end capitalism, colonization, racism, imperialism, war and climate catastrophe. WE ARE RISING - New Liberation Anthem & Accompanying Video Released
Welcoming in the New Year, we are thrilled to share the NEW "We Are Rising" music video. Directed by social justice artist Taína Asili - who also wrote and performed the song – the video features studio footage from the recording session and activist footage from One Billion Rising actions all over the globe. It is a call to action, to dance, to RISE. The song celebrates our collective energy, creative resistance, and solidarity as we RISE against the tides of violence against all women, climate crisis, racism and corporate greed. WATCH the video. Share and spread widely. We want everyone to hear it! RISE 2020: Raise the Vibration, plan a RISING, a V-DAY benefit production, or a CITY OF JOY screening or house party in your college or community. V-Day: Say It, Stage It - PRODUCE a V-Day benefit as an Artistic Uprising in your college/university, in your community. DONATE to V-Day >? Your Solidarity & Support Make This Movement Possible. ?Please consider giving to V-Day this season. 31 December is the last day to make charitable donations in order to claim them on your 2019 tax return. V-Day is a California 501(c)(3) public charity and is one of the Top-Rated organizations on both. Charity Navigator and Guidestar.        V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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Dearest Activists, Friends & Supporters, 2019 was a powerful year in our movement that saw grassroots activists pushing boundaries and engaging in dialogue through an intersectional lens, with art and activism always at the forefront. V-Day, One Billion Rising, and City of Joy activists around the world escalated the urgency to fight for gender, climate, economic and racial justice while tirelessly working to end harassment, rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation and sex slavery. Activists are Rising against a rising tide of right-wing nationalism, white supremacy, fascism, tyranny, hatred of and fear of immigrants, misogyny, femicide, homophobia, transphobia, corporate greed, and climate destruction. Your friendship, activism, and support has powered an unstoppable movement supporting grassroots anti-violence organizations and activists, opening safe houses, and sustaining domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers. It is also bringing about legislation supporting women and girls. Active in over 200 countries, having raised $120 million, V-Day is a global phenomenon.
In 2019: Eve's latest work, The Apology, a best seller, sparked a necessary dialogue on sexual assault, accountability, and transformation. It has engaged media across the globe and sparked a great deal of dialogue about what the anatomy of a true apology is. In the new year, its reach will grow as it’s released in France, Germany, Brazil, Taiwan, and in Arabic. We created three new songs for the movement this year. "Dismantle," by Duo Charity Croff And Jacob Denzel Of Archduke (Featuring Taylor Iman And Jenee Jones) invited Men – and everyone – to dismantle the patriarchy. On International Women’s Day, we released "Like a Woman" by Ryan Amador (produced by Hannah Rubinstein, a music video directed by Sekou Luke) calling men to recognize and celebrate women’s leadership, and to join the movement to end gender-based violence. And just this month, we released "We Are Rising" by Taina Asili – a liberation anthem – calling us to RISE against tides of violence against women, climate crisis, racism, and corporate greed. Thousands of One Billion Rising actions and V-Day benefit productions of The Vagina Monologues and A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and A Prayer amplified the epidemic of global sexual abuse and efforts to end it across the globe. At City of Joy in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the 16th class has just graduated, turning their pain into power that will surely spark change on the grassroots level. In Kabul, women at the City of Knowledge are breaking barriers as they educate themselves to create better futures for themselves, and in turn their families. Through all of these campaigns and actions, men are grappling with patriarchy, engaging in dialogue that once seemed impossible.
Support #VDay, the global activist movement to end violence against all women and girls (cisgender, transgender, and those who hold fluid identities that are subject to gender based violence). As we move into 2020 and enter a new decade, we are filled with gratitude for all that you have given and all that you do. We stand together in solidarity, ready to Raise the Vibration through Action, Art, Connection, Imagination and Love. With V-love,? Eve, Susan, Christine, Monique, Purva, Tony, Carl, Kristina, Roslyn, Leila, Swetha & Anju DONATE to V-Day >? Your Solidarity & Support Make This Movement Possible. ?Please consider giving to V-Day this season. P.S. If your gift is already on its way, thank you! V-Day is a California 501(c)(3) public charity and is one of the Top-Rated organizations on both. Charity Navigator and Guidestar. 31 December is the last day to make charitable donations in order to claim them on your 2019 tax return        V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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RISE 2020 One Billion Rising activists are taking to the streets across the globe amplifying some of the most pressing issues that intersect with violence against all women and girls (cisgender, transgender, and those who hold fluid identities that are subject to gender-based violence). Risings are Raising the Vibration, amplifying the voices of survivors, youth, and communities globally, making lasting impact through creative vision and voice.
Risings are planned in over 180 countries. India is rising in all 29 states, hundreds of risings are planned in Poland, Germany, Italy and the Philippines respectively. Across Europe, the European Women’s Lobby has launched a massive OBR social media campaign. Activists are amplifying local issues and across the board are making the connections to climate change and violence against women and girls. We've begun a global schedule of events, and will be adding more – check it out here (list in formation). How are you RISING? Tell us on social media and tag us - #RaiseTheVibration and #1BillionRising so we can share your Rising with the world! Women Workers ROSE in NYC This Week
Joining the thousands of One Billion Rising creative resistance actions happening all over the world, on 3 February, restaurant workers, Eve, Times Up members and actresses Carmen LoBue and Alysia Reiner, social justice artist/musician Taína Asili, One Billion Rising, One Fair Wage, allies, and 25+ other groups RAISED THE VIBRATION and staged a public self defense training in response to Governor Cuomo’s New Year’s Eve announcement that he would enact One Fair Wage – a full minimum wage with tips included – for all tipped laborers except restaurant workers.
It is the first in a series of WOMEN WORKERS RISING mass self-defense actions, organized by One Billion Rising and One Fair Wage. In New York, restaurant workers are primarily women of color who suffer from three times the poverty rate of workers in non-tipped industries. Because restaurant servers have to rely on customer tips to pay their rent and feed their families, these women endure the highest rates of sexual harassment in any industry. "When I worked in a Michelin Star restaurant, I would have some customers who would ask me to sit on their lap. I would have male co-workers, who were also my superiors, who would flirt or try to get me to sleep with them," said Carmen LoBue, actress and member of Time’s Up.
A letter signed by nearly 30 advocacy and women’s rights organizations was delivered to the Governor, urging him to eliminate the subminimum wage for restaurant workers in New York. Organizations who co-signed the letter include One Fair Wage, One Billion Rising, Make the Road New York, Citizen Action of New York, National Employment Law Project, National Women’s Law Center, New York Civil Liberties Union, The New York Women’s Foundation, Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York (ROC-NY), New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault and more. VIEW photos, check out our photo gallery > READ coverage of the event: Gothamist/WNYC: Restaurant Workers Left Out Of $15/Hour Minimum Wage Plan; AM New York, Restaurant workers rally in Manhattan for a more equal ‘One Fair Wage' plan; WCBS News Radio 880, Tipped Restaurant Workers Call On State For $15 Minimum Wage; El Diario, Trabajadoras de restaurantes piden a Cuomo el salario mínimo regular NEW! Mujer Valiente/Like A Woman Spanish Language Video Released
The video to MUJER VALIENTE, the Spanish language translation of “Like a Woman” by singer songwriter Ryan Amador performed by Kike Jiménez (finalist on The Voice Mexico) and Sean O’Connell, has been released today! Produced by One Billion Rising Mexico global coordinator Andrés Naime and featuring testimonies about the women in their lives by comedian Manu NNa, playwright Victor Barba, personal trainer Cisse Occean Andoeza, actor Andrés Durán, chef Andrés De León, activist Quique Galeano, artist and activist Thomas Fléchel, politician Alejandro Orozco, and Andrés Naime. “Mujer Valiente/Like a Woman” are part of V-Day’s initiative to create provocative art pieces that inspire people to act. “Many of us young people believe there’s no such thing as misogyny or gender-based violence anymore, when really it’s as strong as ever. Every day there are new cases of missing women, many sold, murdered, or victims of violence at home. It is so important that we create consciousness and awareness that these are real and actual problems that cannot be ignored. It’s an honor to be a voice for this amazing cause.” – Kike Jiménez, singer of “Mujer Valiente.” We invite men everywhere to join the campaign, upload your own “Like a Woman” and “Mujer Valiente” tributes, reflecting your appreciation for the women in your life while also considering what it means to be a man in a world where one in three women are directly affected by sexual violence.
LISTEN & JOIN THE CAMPAIGN: Like-A-Woman.org Join Us – RISE 2020: V-Day: Say It, Stage It - PRODUCE a V-Day benefit as an Artistic Uprising in your college/university, in your community.        V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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WOMEN RESTAURANT WORKERS & ALLIES PROTEST GOV. CUOMO’S EXCLUSION OF RESTAURANTS FROM TIPPED WORKER EXECUTIVE ACTION ‘Women Workers Rising’ Action By One Fair Wage and One Billion Rising In response to Governor Cuomo’s New Year’s Eve announcement that he would enact One Fair Wage – a full minimum wage with tips on top – for all tipped workers except restaurant workers, women restaurant workers and their allies will stage a mass public self-defense training in front of the Governor’s office. Playwright/Founder of V-Day/One Billion Rising Eve Ensler, One Billion Rising, actress Carmen LoBue, social justice artist/musician Taína Asili, and the Resistance Revival Chorus will be joining One Fair Wage members and allies in demanding One Fair Wage and safe and dignified workplaces for all. Given that New York State’s subminimum wage for tipped workers results in a 70% female workforce having to tolerate the highest rates of sexual harassment of any industry in order to feed their families in tips, women in the restaurant industry are demanding to be included in the One Fair Wage executive action. As long as they have a subminimum wage, they must learn to defend themselves from sexual violence in the workplace in order earn a living in tips. One Fair Wage President Saru Jayaraman states, “Even though he announced that he would review the subminimum wage in 2017 specifically in order to address sexual harassment in the restaurant industry, Governor Cuomo instead gave One Fair Wage to other tipped workers and excluded restaurant workers – thus leaving them vulnerable to the highest rates of sexual harassment of any industry because of their reliance on tips. At a time that Pres. Trump is taking tipped workers’ federal rights a way, instead of rolling over to the power of the National Restaurant Association, Gov. Cuomo should follow through and enact One Fair Wage for all.” Eve Ensler of One Billion Rising says, “I am rising on February 3 to honor and protect restaurant workers, to demand that they receive one fair wage which they so richly deserve and which will help protect them from sexual abuse on the job. This Women Workers Rising action joins the thousands of One Billion Rising creative resistance actions taking place throughout the US and the world, where women are rising up on the stage, in the streets, and in front of government offices, to demand changes in the policies and culture that sustain violence and inequality. We will rise until the violence stops.” WHAT: Mass Public Self-Defense Training by Restaurant Workers & Allies Join us! RAISE THE VIBRATION, V-SEASON 2020
Across the globe, V-Day, One Billion Rising and City of Joy activists are rising up, through artistic and political resistance actions to end rape, battery, incest, sexual harassment, female genital mutilation, sexual slavery and trafficking, child marriage, femicide, sexual, gender and reproductive oppression, violence towards LGBTQIA+ communities; Raising the vibration through art, action, and solidarity. Want to Get Involved? RISE 2020: Raise the Vibration, plan a RISING, a V-DAY benefit production, or a CITY OF JOY screening or house party in your college or community. V-Day: Say It, Stage It - PRODUCE a V-Day benefit as an Artistic Uprising in your college/university, in your community.        V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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We Are RISING
Activists, survivors and youth around the globe are Raising the Vibration for #1BillionRising 2020. This is a snapshot of the thousands of One Billion Rising creative resistance events. Risings are taking place during the month of February and leading up to 8 March, #InternationalWomensDay. Over a hundred cities in Italy, Poland, Germany, and the Philippines respectively are Rising. Every state in India. Over 500 V-Day Risings in the United States. The Risings are grassroots and global, led by youth, survivors, artists, and activists, who determine how and why they rise, with and for their communities. One Billion Rising is the biggest mass action to end violence against women in human history. One Billion Rising activists worldwide mobilize, engage, awaken and join people across the planet to end violence against all women and girls. 1 in 3 women across the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime. That's ONE BILLION WOMEN AND GIRLS. Every February, we Rise – in countries across the world – to show our local communities and the world what one billion looks like and shine a light on the rampant impunity and injustice that survivors most often face. We Rise through dance to express joy and community and celebrate the fact that we have not been defeated by this violence. We Rise to show we are determined to create a new kind of consciousness – one where violence will be resisted until it is unthinkable. The rise of misogynist, authoritarian regimes the world over - from the United States to the Philippines, India to Brazil - has recalibrated work of the movement, further escalating the urgency with which we feel compelled to fight for gender, climate, economic and racial justice. Activists are Rising up, through artistic and political resistance actions to end rape, battery, incest, sexual harassment, female genital mutilation, sexual slavery and trafficking, child marriage, femicide, sexual, gender and reproductive oppression, violence towards LGBTQIA+ communities. RAISING THE VIBRATION through action, art, connection, imagination and love.
Ready to RISE? Join us! #RaiseTheVibration Plan a RISING, a V-Day benefit production, or a CITY OF JOY screening or house party in your college or community.        V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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Ready to Rise? Join One Billion Rising 2021: Rising Gardens
Rising Gardens is a defiant creative call for revival, restoration and transformation. Gardens as a compassionate call for justice - because one of the greatest injustices of our time has been the destruction and eradication of Mother Earth, parallel to the ongoing and escalating gender-based violence. Ready to RISE, GARDEN, RESIST? Visit OneBillionRising.org The Covid-19 pandemic has rapidly blown open the destructive veins of neoliberalism, capitalism, racism, fascism and patriarchy, revealing violent and broken systems that have been forced upon us for far too long. The majority of people who are dying are those who have been historically exploited, oppressed, marginalized and discriminated against because of race, gender, class, caste. The sacred connection that Indigenous communities hold with the land has been violated through colonization, broken treaties, and continuous human rights violations. Across the planet, the majority of front line workers, health care workers, home care workers, domestic workers, and farmworkers are women. Like the Earth, they are the least valued and protected. One Billion Rising Global Coordinators have begun to launch the 2021 Rising Gardens campaign globally in India, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Mexico, Eswatini, Malawi, Nigeria and Japan. (Read about their risings by clicking on the country name above and it will take you to their blog post.)
We RISE to value, protect and uplift those who are doing essential work. We RISE for the Earth, which is the most essential to all life. We call on everyone around the world to RISE in honor and celebration of our women workers, and to create and grow RISING GARDENS. WHY RISING GARDENS? Gardens remind us of our enduring connection to life, to each other and to Earth, which compels us to do everything in our power to protect and nurture life and all that is sacred without doing harm. The cultivation of plant life is also a means for survival. Growing food in a garden organically - be it your own indoor garden or a community garden - allows you to feed yourself and your community. Maintaining a garden is an act of resistance because it does the opposite of what the capitalist machinery does - it connects people and communities with the Earth. To grow one's own food, to grow beauty and life - is revolutionary in this age of ecological, environmental, societal, spiritual collapse. Tending to a garden, like nurturing our own communities, requires patience, creativity, love, care, attentiveness, presence, diligence, mindfulness and commitment. Gardening centralizes growing and giving, it is not about taking or acquiring. To care for a garden - to nurture it to bloom and grow - deepens our relationship to Mother Earth We cannot keep the ongoing extraction of women's labour and earth's produce, with no gratitude to both. We must honor and protect the Earth and women in order for any future life to exist. Raise the Vibration with your hands and bodies. RISE FOR WOMEN AND MOTHER EARTH. JOIN OBR! Learn more about the campaign RISING DURING 16 DAYS OF ACTIVISM 
From 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, to 10 December, Human Rights Day, 16 DAYS OF ACTIVISM against Gender-Based Violence Campaign is a time to RISE to end violence against all women and girls (cisgender and transgender and those who hold fluid identities.) In conjunction with 16 Days of Activism (and in some cases extending to 18 December/ International Migrants Day) coordinators in Australia, Austria, Cambodia, Croatia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Fiji, Guatemala, Indonesia, Jamaica, Myanmar, Rwanda,Taiwan, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and United States of America are launching Rising Gardens 2021, harnessing the global energy of 16 Days as they ready for global One Billion Rising events in February and bringing the issue of gender based violence front and center in their communities. OBR coordinators use the momentum to further the seeds of their campaign and bring the issues of violence against women and the many ways this has worsened and been informed by the Covid-19 crisis and destructive veins of neoliberalism, capitalism, and racism. Have questions about how you can do a One Billion Rising events in your community?
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FOR #GIVINGTUESDAYNOW, RISE & SUPPORT WOMEN ON THE FRONTLINES Dearest Activists, As the world faces the Covid-19 pandemic, activists, artists, survivors, youth around the world are rising to help impacted communities, frontline workers, and survivors. We invite you support these two new efforts created in solidarity. Your donation will provide much needed assistance and hope for women in these uncertain times. With thanks for your activism and support. V-love, RISING IN THE TIME OF CORONA EMERGENCY FUND
The rapid spread of coronavirus across the globe has revealed what has always been a glaring truth for so many of the essential workers who are the backbone of our society: inequity. From the people who pick our food to the people who deliver our packages, it is the working class and poor who are most vulnerable to the virus and the economic disaster that Covid-19 has laid bare. So often these frontline workers are women. Many of them are activists, young leaders, and women who are part of our movement. From Kenya to India, Guatemala to Thailand, we are hearing about great need from across our vast global network. While some are struggling with isolation and increased proximity to potentially violence situations within their homes, others are struggling with making rent, feeding their families and accessing masks and protective gear to keep themselves and their loved ones safe. Workers and health care professionals in every country are on the front lines of the crisis, risking their lives to take care of other people, to keep food on the shelves, to deliver necessary services, and to heal those who are sick. For so many survivors, home is not a safe place. Advocates worldwide are providing shelter as well as posting information and resources online.
At the City of Joy in Congo and the V-Day Safe House for the Girls in Kenya, there is increased need as leaders mobilize to support their graduates and the surrounding community. In Congo, young women are taking leadership, making masks, providing food to those in need. City of Joy leadership is mobilizing internationally for necessary personal protection equipment for nearby Panzi Hospital. In Kenya, V-Day Safe House girls studying at boarding school took unexpected but necessary refuge at the safe house due to the virus. Elders in the surrounding communities are supported with food relief and other means of help from the team at the Safe House.
In response to these increasing needs, V-Day is launching the RISING IN THE TIME OF CORONA EMERGENCY FUND to support grassroots activists leading their communities' response to Covid-19. We will use funds to rapidly respond to needs on the ground. Support Women on the Frontlines, DONATE Today Photo Credits: R?gine Kamba, @ntomonok, @campesinasunite, @calnurses V-DAY LAUNCHES THE MOTHER''S DAY FUND FOR INCARCERATED WOMEN From Roslyn Smith, V-Day Beyond Incarceration Manager: The general population at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility was informed about the death of a fellow resident Lulu, on 29 April 2020. There were 627 women housed there; now one is gone and we mourn for her with her family and friends. This is a sad time for all of us, especially for me. I did my entire 39 year sentence at Bedford Hills. The women there are my family and dearest friends. I love and care deeply for them and have vowed to fight for their rights and dignity. Most of these women are past the age of 50 and many have poor health issues that are not being addressed properly. Visiting has been suspended indefinitely and phone calls are limited to within an hour time frame along with taking a shower, washing clothing, fixing a meal or going to the kiosk to send an email or download a book. The mess hall has limited food to dispense and the commissary is short on supplies. The women must be so lonely and frightened at this time my heart is broken, especially for the children who haven't seen their mothers since this began and for the woman in federal prison who was serving a 26-month sentence and died of Covid-19 several weeks after giving birth to her child while on a ventilator. We knew that this time would come and yet we diligently prayed for a different outcome. Unfortunately, 2 women have succumbed to Covid-19 while detained in prison. Despite the many efforts of Freedom Fighters/Advocacy groups for criminal justice reform and decarceration, who voiced their concerns by submitting letters, petitions, rallying, holding events and forums on Zoom, Facebook and other social media outlets about the safety and vulnerability of incarcerated people, many will die. Since April 26, 2020 there have been 21 positive cases of Covid-19 and 4 recoveries reported at Bedford Hills facility. Are we so hell bent on punishment that we no longer see that all life is precious? Does being incarcerated now, because of Covid-19, denote a death sentence? We are supposed to be protecting the most vulnerable of society - our elders and those with underlying health issues that make them subsequently at risk of contracting Covid-19." V-Day is raising funds for our incarcerated sisters at Bedford Hills this Mother''s Day to provide them with care packages of food and essentials to help ease conditions and to let them know we care. Please support the Mother's Day Fund for Incarcerated Women. Support Incarcerated Women, DONATE today #GivingTuesdayNow        V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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V''s Birthday Wish - RISE & Support Essential Women Workers on the Front Line
"In this time of the Great Transition where we move from transaction to connection, from dying for profit to living for people and the earth, a major ingredient of this transformation will be seeing and honoring and valuing and protecting those who make our lives possible." - V
The rapid spread of coronavirus across the globe has revealed what has always been a glaring truth for so many of the essential workers who are the backbone of our society: inequity. From the people who pick our food to the people who deliver our packages, it is the working class and poor who are most vulnerable to the virus and the economic disaster that Covid-19 has laid bare. So often these frontline workers are women. Many of them are activists, young leaders, and women who are part of our movement. From the United States to India, Guatemala to Thailand, we are hearing about great need from across our vast global network. While some are struggling with isolation and increased proximity to potentially violent situations within their homes, others are struggling with making rent, feeding their families and accessing masks and protective gear to keep themselves and their loved ones safe.
Workers and health care professionals in every country are on the front lines of the crisis, risking their lives to take care of other people, to keep food on the shelves, to deliver necessary services, and to heal those who are sick. For so many survivors, home is not a safe place. Advocates worldwide are providing shelter as well as posting information and resources online. As the world faces the Covid-19 pandemic, activists, artists, survivors, youth around the world are rising to help impacted communities, frontline workers, and survivors. CELEBRATE V''S BIRTHDAY Your donation will provide much needed assistance and hope for essential women in these uncertain times. Happy Birthday V! With Love & Solidarity,        V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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May Her Memory Be a Revolution
We RISE in her name for gender equality, immigrant rights, access to abortion, voting rights, LGBTQIA equality, healthcare, workers' rights - the rights that she dedicated her life to. We refuse the deadly, hypocritical engine of the right wing. We organize. We vote. We thank her for her life by devoting ours to fighting for justice. We share our deepest love to her family and loved ones. Amidst her decades long, pathbreaking career, Ginsburg co-founded the Women''s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union and won six gender discrimination lawsuits before the US Supreme Court. "In my life, what I find most satisfying is that I was part of a movement that made life better, not just for women . gender discrimination is bad for everyone." - Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She was appointed to the United States Supreme Court in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, the second woman and the first Jewish woman to be appointed. "Dissents speak to a future age. It''s not simply to say my colleagues are wrong and I would do it this way, but the greatest dissents do become court opinions." - From a 2002 NPR interview, on her Supreme Court dissents. Rest in power, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We honor your powerful voice, May Her Memory Be a Revolution, V-Day, One Billion Rising, City of Joy TAKE ACTION: SIGN the Move On petition opposing any Supreme Court confirmation until after the next presidential inauguration, and please ask others you know to sign it. JOIN the vigils taking place tonight to celebrate, mourn and carry on the fight. V IS FOR VOTE, for activists who vote in the United States. Here is a short list of resources which includes info voting guidelines, deadlines about mail-in ballots, and to help you get out the vote: REGISTER
VOTER ID LAWS
VOTING RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS
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We RISE In Solidarity with the Indian Farmers Movement As massive protests in solidarity with farmers take place in India, V-Day and OBR activists RISE and stand in solidarity with them. One Billion Rising India Global Coordinator Abha Bhaiya & Kavitha Krishnan drafted this "Message from Women's Movement to Farmers" -
"Today women and men in the farmers'' struggle are standing shoulder to shoulder at the Delhi borders. This movement is a symbol in the history of India-a symbol of freedom, of voices, of ideas, of protests, of slogans, of resolutions. This is not just a farmers' struggle; it is a joint campaign of all of us, of children, women and men. Each morsel that we eat is proof of your hard work. The manner in which you are all standing fearlessly against the three draconian anti-farm laws and in the face of the government's repressive policies, terrorizing attacks and the cruelty of those holding power is beyond comparison. You have shown that the government cannot inflict policies and laws on farmers through force, water cannons and lathis. Indeed, it is the fundamental right of every citizen to oppose any policy that does not have the participation of women and men farmers. Your struggle has filled the workers, farmers and common people of the country with a surge of hope. We stand with you in support and solidarity for the victory of your movement. When we say 'farmer' we most often think of men who are farmers. But half the farmer population is made up of women farmers. It is our belief that women farmers are the pillar of farming traditions and agrarian economic autonomy. 85% of rural women work in agriculture, but women own only 12-15% of cultivable land...
The entire country will stand with farmers against the anti-farm laws. The women's movement gives full support to the farmers' movement and the demand for the repeal of the three anti-farm laws. We demand that talks are held with our farmer sisters and brothers unconditionally and without any pressure and all their just demands are met fully. The entire women''s movement stands in solidarity with our brave farmer sisters and brothers in their struggle." The above is an excerpt, read the full message here. JOIN US FOR FREEDOM ON THE WINGS OF WORDS ZOOM EVENT, TOMORROW, 15 DECEMBER Join us for a very special virtual evening featuring readings by incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women who are participating in the Right/Write to Heal project. FREEDOM ON THE WINGS OF WORDS sponsored by the Center for Justice at Columbia University, National Writers Union, and V-Day.
Tuesday, December 15 at 6:00PM ET Right/Write to Heal builds on V-Day and the Center for Justice's years of work seeking to humanize the unique individual and collective experiences of women - particularly women of color - who from early in their lives face racism, violence, and structural barriers that lead to punishment and imprisonment. Through this timely project, women will 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. Your Trust, Generosity and Vision Make Our Movement Possible
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. 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. Donate Today If your gift is already on its way, thank you! V-Day is a California 501(c)(3) public charity and is one of the Top-Rated organizations on both Charity Navigator and Guidestar. 31 December is the last day to make charitable donations in order to claim them on your 2020 tax return.        V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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Essential Service Workers Take Action Launching Series of Strikes Beginning Monday; Join Elena the Essential Worker These are challenging times for essential service workers, workers of color, and womxn-identifying workers and mothers especially. We write today to ask for your support for these frontline workers. Tipped service workers, including servers, bartenders, delivery workers, and more, are starting a series of monthly strikes this coming Monday, August 31, demanding a full minimum wage with tips on top, at a time when tips are down 50-75%. These workers' subminimum wages have caused a horrific experience for them during this pandemic, as has also been the case for so many other essential workers in other sectors.
Read Elena's biography to learn more about this powerful piece of artwork by Paul Leibow. Elena will measure 24 ft high and be dressed as service in a visual representation of the fight for One Fair Wage. She will make her world debut at worker strike locations this coming Monday in New York and Chicago. From there, Elena the Essential will hit the road and make appearances in Boston, Philadelphia, D.C. and Orlando (5-6 different art pieces). We share Elena's 'Coming Out' on the heels of a historic strike vote by tipped service workers on August 24, 2020. With a unanimous vote, service workers who have been organizing and mobilizing for change all over the country will take to the streets on Monday, August 31st for a one-day strike in New York and Chicago in solidarity with tipped service workers in their cities and all over the country who have to rely on tips to make ends meet. The strikes will be growing to more cities -- at least to Boston, Philadelphia, D.C. and Orlando -- at the end of September, and then again at the end of each month until we win One Fair Wage -- a full minimum wage with tips on top. Can you come see Elena IRL and join striking service workers in a socially-distant action & picket line in solidarity? If so, please register here! If you can't be with us, we'd greatly appreciate it if you could use this Social Media Tool to share this timely solidarity alert on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. You can also make your voice heard by signing the petition at FightDontStarve.com and share it with your friends! Thank you for supporting this important movement for social, racial and economic justice for all! #1FairWage #NoWorkerLeftBehind #1BillionRising #FightDontStarve In Solidarity, 15 Years Since Hurricane Katrina,
This week is the 15th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. As the anniversary approaches - and a new storm is approaching the coast of Louisiana and Texas - we remember those we lost and those whose lives were changed fifteen years ago and we celebrate the activists in New Orleans and the Gulf South whose work to rebuild is ongoing, whose work to address the devastating impact of climate change continues. We remember the 30,000 activists, survivors and artists who converged in New Orleans in 2008 for V-Day''s 10th anniversary celebration V TO THE TENTH including the premiere performance of SWIMMING UPSTREAM in the Superdome. 16 New Orleans women crafted Swimming Upstream - a powerful theatrical production that tells the raw and soulful stories of women who lived through Hurricanes Rita and Katrina with grace, rage and great resiliency, punctuated by a flair for storytelling, humor and music that comes from being New Orleanian.
The performance featured Troi Bechet, Asali DeVan Ecclesiastes, Anne-Liese Juge Fox, Briceshanay Gresham, Karen-kaia Livers, and guest performers Shirley Knight, Anna Deavere Smith, and Kerry Washington. We honor Shirley Knight, who passed away this Spring. Shirley, a dear friend of the V-Day movement, lent her talents to many V-Day artistic productions over the years, in support of our work to end violence against all women and girls. Written by Carol Bebelle, Troi Bechet, Reverend Lois Dejean, Asali DeVan Ecclesiastes, Anne-Liese Juge Fox, Adella Gautier, Briceshanay Gresham, Herreast Harrison, Karen-kaia Livers, Tommye Myrick, Cherice Harrison-Nelson, Kathy Randels, Dollie Rivas, Dina Roudeze, Karel Sloane-Boekbinder, Carol Sutton. Created in a process facilitated by V-Day Founder/playwright/activist V (formerly Eve Ensler) and Carol Bebelle, (then) Executive Director and Co-founder of Ash? Cultural Arts Center, the play was produced by V-Day and Ash? Cultural Arts Center with Support from Open Society Foundation.
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 words from the artistic creative director of voices:Each of us become a poem, stanzas spilling unafraid. And yet, too many have faded in the silence, disappeared. We be gone, missing, lost and stolen. Each day we find ourselves in each other. Phrases and sounds scribbled on our breath. We are the poems we have been waiting for. As we all struggle to balance the hurt and the healing of this shifting time, we need swinging machete sharp words, freshwater metaphors. We need images animated by our visions. I have seen miracles: the fierce fire of our fury, the magnificent making of our care. Our lives are larger than singing our suffering or picking at the scab of our scars. We are the prayers of our pleasure, the remedies of our rage, how we tend to our inherited wounds. What are our ancient practices humming back to us? Nourished by active listening, who are we loved and alive? We need truth telling courage. It is with glittering joy and excitement that I share an entirely new art project and campaign I am creating and directing for V-Day, a global activist movement to end violence against all women (cisgender and transgender), those who hold fluid identities, nonbinary people, girls and the planet.. Historically, V-Day was born out of campaigns, volunteers, and college students who organized annual benefit performances of a theater art piece by V (formerly Eve Ensler) called The Vagina Monologues to support anti-violence groups within their own communities. Each year, V-Day has grown and continued to support thousands of survivors, community leaders, artists, and organizers across the globe in the effort to end violence against women, girls, and the planet. V-Day is a shining example of how art is power and can be used to organize for transformational education and social justice. While The Vagina Monologues has been performed by, with, and for diverse communities around the world, it is time for new art and new stories to be at the center of our movement against violence, poverty, racism, and patriarchy. It is with great enthusiasm that we announce that V-Day is officially shifting away from The Vagina Monologues as a center-piece for our movement work to create an entirely new piece called Voices, a project for which I will serve as Artistic Creative Director to feature stories by and for Black women on the African Continent and across the African Diaspora. The Vagina Monologues will continue to exist as a play outside of V-Day for millions of women to draw from worldwide. Amidst the tumult in the streets and the upheaval in the world, we must remind ourselves that we are sacred and present in all things. Until we deeply reflect, until we are supported in the efforts of our healing, we will continue to live in fear, insecurity, and trauma. On any given day, social media mocks our shadow selves, constantly reinforcing our triggers and advertising our most destructive behavior. This new art piece and campaign welcomes another process, inviting us to re-vision and reimagine ourselves in relationship with one another. To organize and relate beyond our screens.
It is important to center Black women's voices but not just because we are Black or women. Our representations of womanhood are only as powerful as our manifestations of solidarity. We cannot ignore or exaggerate our identity as Black women. No movement will survive without our sistering. When we can carry one another in our struggle and our joy, in our frustrations and our contradictions, we make more room in the world for healing justice, we find the groove beyond our grief. We reject perpetuating the harm we have endured. We refuse to Art is not so much about reactive expression as it is intentional presence. It is our unothering. We do not create because we have the answers. We create because we are possessed by our questions. Art for the people by the people and from the people is crucial and necessary. Art is how we do ideas. It is how we heal. Meaningful art serves and expands our consciousness. What can be more expansive than the consciousnesses of women united across the world? Making the unheard be heard and the invisible made visible. Great art shows us how to listen. It is where we discover our belonging and our purpose. The cosmic force of possibility.
As V-Day continues to organize across the globe for an end to violence against all women, girls and the planet, we shift the focus from our vaginas to the visions of our voices. As we live and love, we must continue to revisit ourselves and examine our convictions about gender and therein race and class. We are more than our bodies though we may conjure through them. We want to create re-remembered value systems. We want to demonstrate how solidarity can be made. We want all those who claim to love us to listen, to collaborate, to imagine and create with us. There are many ways to share our voices. Some of us sing, some of us dance, some of us paint. Active listening is also how we speak. In the midst of all that has tried our communities, I see a future where women across the globe are holistically loved and cared after. I see a culture transformed by gratitude for the labor, brilliance, and spirit of Black women. Even now, I witness Black women carrying stories on the frontlines of our dreams, in clinics and hospital rooms, at the market and grocery stores, in living rooms and even on Zoom calls. All across the world I witness as Black women per usual turn nothing into something, making miracles of madness, all while holding strength and grace. We create. We are boldly stepping into our power, commanding leadership in our lives, and demanding love in action. We are owning our vulnerability and manifesting our most intimate visions. We are more than the superficial imaginations of colonialism, whiteness, and patriarchy. We are the poetic philosophers of an unseen world. We are the very language of difference and magic. For so long our anger has been weaponized against us, Black women are rarely if ever offered space to be complex, dynamic, flawed, and fierce. We are in a constant state of outrage. All around the world many of us are fighting for our lives while still fighting to defend those we love. We are struggling to protect our planet and our bodies. We endure and we continue to create. We are protagonists in the theater of our tragedy. But what about our contemplative lives? What do we wonder about? Who are we in our state of daydream and awe? Where do our minds go to wander? What imaginations look back at us in dishwater, wringing clothes, rinsing skin in buckets of bubbles? We will always need art that reflects the revolutionary mindscapes of Black women, our journeys, our labor, our leisure, and our inventions. Our freedom. This is an opportunity for women of all orientations, nationalities, and identities to come together to cherish, to support, and to transform the conditions that silence and disappear us. This is the evolution of heart work. We need new vocabularies and new expressions that speak from our deepest and most uncensored selves. We unite and connect through our differences. We celebrate the possibilities born of our creative coalitions. We are dedicated to a radical feminist future. The most critical part of this Voices art piece will be the submissions. We are creating this piece with actual poems and visual art by Black women created in response to encouraged prompts. The strength will lay in the vulnerability and the integrity of the art shared. We are asking Black women from all across the world to submit poems, monologues, stories, and visual art which address the range of our experiences. The current submissions deadline will be December 31st, 2020. Now more than ever, we need this. We need art that is collective, functional and committing. Voices will be a dedication to the politics and artistic autonomy of both the process and project. If you love a Black woman, create more space for her to create. If there is a story she holds that can set her free, help her hold it. May all Black women write (or speak), free of grammatical straightjackets and forms that muzzle our telling. If there is a sister we know with a powerful story who cannot read or write it, offer to transcribe it for her. We need everyone willing and able in this effort.
Join Aja Monet & V (formerly Eve Ensler) for a powerful IG discussion to kick off our Listening Tour. Visions from Vaginas to Voices. Sisterhood, Storytelling and Solidarity-Making Art, Consciousness-raising & Radical Feminist Futures. Why its time for a new centerpiece and the art we need right now! Follow @visforvoices   V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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WE ARE RISING FOR INTERNATIONAL WOMEN''S DAY
Our new liberation anthem, "We Are Rising," is a global hit! The video has been viewed over half a million times and the song has been featured at the center of risings around the world! We keep rising like the fire of the sun... The song is a call to action and a call to RISE against the tides of violence against all women, climate crisis, racism, and corporate greed. The anthem has resonated with activists, with footage already coming in from Myanmar, Italy, US Virgin Islands, Thailand, Philippines, Swaziland, Mexico, Canada, and the United States showing activists, survivors, and community members dancing to it.
CALL TO RISE, WE ARE RISING FOR INTERNATIONAL WOMEN''S DAY:
LISTEN to "We Are Rising" WEINSTEIN FOUND GUILTY OF SEXUAL ASSAULT AND RAPE Content warning: rape, sexual violence Two years after survivors broke the silence around Harvey Weinstein''s predatory behavior, Harvey Weinstein has been found guilty of criminal sexual acts and rape in New York.
On Monday, 24 February, a New York jury found Weinstein guilty of a criminal sex act in the first degree and rape in the third degree. Weinstein will have to register as a sex offender and could face up to twenty-five years in prison. He will be sentenced on 11 March. Now, Weinstein is due to face a criminal case in Los Angeles, where prosecutors filed charges for two incidents that happened over a two-day period. Weinstein is accused of forcible rape, sexual penetration by use of force, and sexual battery by restraint. These crimes carry a potential 28-year prison sentence. While the specifics of the trial are not yet clear considering that Weinstein is now a convicted rapist in New York, the Los Angeles district attorney''s office reported that they were still moving forward with the case. ("Harvey Weinstein to face charges in Los Angeles after guilty verdict in New York", Sam Levin, The Guardian, 25 February 2020). With gratitude to every woman who broke the silence, to everyone who said #MeToo, to everyone whose case didn''t make it this far - we see you, we believe you, and we love you. Your voice, your bravery changed the tide and moved us ever closer to justice. We will stand with you and we will fight #UntilTheViolenceStops. Join us RISE 2020: Raise the Vibration, plan a RISING, a V-DAY benefit production, or a CITY OF JOY screening or house party in your college or community.        V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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CELEBRATING & HONORING OUR MOTHERS, TODAY AND EVERY DAY
Today, V-Day wishes all a Happy Mother''s Day. As we reflect upon and honor the women who have given us life - whether that is through birth, chosen family, or adoption - we express our deepest gratitude and celebrate these mothers today and every day. We give thanks for our most essential mother - Mother Earth - and we honor essential mothers everywhere. We honor caretakers on the front lines of the Covid-19 pandemic who are risking their lives as essential workers while still mothering, helping, holding, healing, caring, and loving. SUPPORT THE V-DAY MOTHER''S DAY FUND FOR INCARCERATED WOMEN
Since 26 April 2020, there have been 21 positive cases of Covid-19 and 4 recoveries reported at Bedford Hills. Covid-19 is an unprecedented and unpredictable global crisis, a defining moment in our history. This virus has affected everyone, but not equally. The deep structural inequalities in economics, health care systems, prisons, race, class and gender around the world are being exposed with devastating results to the most vulnerable people, particularly women. The general population at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility was informed about the death of a fellow resident Lulu, on 29 April. There were 627 women housed there; now one is gone and we mourn for her with her family and friends. "This is a sad time for all of us, especially for me. I did my entire 39 year sentence at Bedford Hills. The women there are my family and dearest friends. I love and care deeply for them and have vowed to fight for their rights and dignity. Most of these women are past the age of 50 and many have poor health issues that are not being addressed properly. Visiting has been suspended indefinitely and phone calls are limited to within an hour time frame along with taking a shower, washing clothing, fixing a meal or going to the kiosk to send an email or download a book. The mess hall has limited food to dispense and the commissary is short on supplies. The women must be so lonely and frightened at this time my heart is broken, especially for the children who haven''t seen their mothers since this began and for the woman in federal prison who was serving a 26-month sentence and died of Covid-19 several weeks after giving birth to her child while on a ventilator." - Roslyn Smith Support the V-Day Mother''s Day Fund for Incarcerated Women. Your donation will provide much needed support and hope for women in these uncertain times. This is an opportunity for all of us to come together, help one another and heal each other even if they are incarcerated. Support Incarcerated Women, DONATE today "LIKE A WOMAN" HONORS WOMEN & CALLS IN MEN TO THE MOVEMENT
As Mother''s Day approaches and with so many women on the front lines, we are playing "Like a Woman" on repeat. Written by singer/songwriter Ryan Amador, the song calls on men to recognize and celebrate women''s leadership, and to join the movement to end gender-based violence. "Like a Woman" places the issue of ending violence against all women and girls front and center and calls upon men to RISE. "Three years ago, inspired by my involvement with V-Day and amidst the horror of our political shift, I wrote ''Like a Woman'' to proclaim, from a man''s voice, my devotion to womankind. The song is a call to men to actively celebrate women and stand up against those who restrict women''s rights and/or perpetuate patriarchal abuse around the world. I am so happy to partner with One Billion Rising to bring this message far and wide." - Ryan Amador, singer/songwriter of "Like a Woman." Produced by Hanan Rubinstein (Alicia Keys, Rita Ora, Nick Jonas) with a music video directed by Sekou Luke ("The Time is Now...featuring Chantal Georges and Thandie Newton"), "Like A Woman" has been played over a million times and has been featured at V-Day and One Billion Rising activist-led events across the globe. In time for Mother''s Day, Ryan has just released a live version of the song. Watch the video here. The song was also recorded in Spanish recorded by Kike Jim?nez (finalist on The Voice Mexico) and Sean O''Connell (Singer/Songwriter and translator of ''Mujer Valiente'' and Spanish Language version of ''Break The Chain''), and produced by One Billion Rising Mexico global coordinator Andres Naime.
SHARE the song, VISIT like-a-woman.org        V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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The performance will feature your favorite actors depicting nurses' struggles and triumphs during the pandemic. This evening will honor, celebrate and lift up the voice of the registered nurse. Featuring: Ed Blunt, Connie Britton, Rosario Dawson, Stephanie Hsu, LaChanze, Liz Mikel, Rosie O'Donnell, Billy Porter, Dale Soules, Marisa Tomei, and Monique Wilson. Please spread the word and join us online, Wednesday, 9 September at 9:00 pm ET/6:00 pm PT. RSVP HERE RISING IN THE TIME OF CORONA EMERGENCY FUND
As part of the fight for one fair wage, tipped service workers, such as servers, bartenders, delivery drivers, and more have started a series of monthly strikes, starting with New York and Chicago on August 31. Together with One Fair Wage, we introduced Elena the Essential Worker, whom we hope can stand on the shoulders of Rosie the Riveter to serve as a new face in the fight for economic, racial, and gender justice! This Labor Day, we write to ask for your support for these frontline workers. From the people who pick our food to the people who deliver our packages, it is the working class and poor who are most vulnerable to the virus and the economic disaster that Covid-19 has laid bare. So often these frontline workers are women. Many of them are activists, young leaders, and women who are part of our movement. Workers and health care professionals in every country are on the front lines of the crisis, risking their lives to take care of other people, to keep food on the shelves, to deliver necessary services, and to heal those who are sick. For so many survivors, home is not a safe place. Advocates worldwide are providing shelter as well as posting information and resources online. As the world faces the Covid-19 pandemic, activists, artists, survivors, and youth around the world are rising to help impacted communities, frontline workers, and survivors. Your donation will give much needed assistance for essential women workers in these uncertain times. DONATE to the Rising in the Time of Corona Emergency Fund        V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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NEW SHORT FILM: Raise the Vibration, Featuring Voiceover by Thandie Newton & Words by Eve Ensler, Released for IWD2020 To celebrate International Women''s Day, we are thrilled to announce the release of our latest short film - "Raise the Vibration" featuring voiceover by actor/activist/V-Day Board member Thandie Newton and words by Tony award winning playwright / One Billion Rising and V-Day founder Eve Ensler. Directed by filmmaker Deborah Anderson ("My Revolution Lives In This Body") and produced by One Billion Rising''s Ensler, Monique Wilson and Susan Celia Swan. The short reflects and celebrates the One Billion Rising campaign''s 2020 theme of "Raise The Vibration." It honors all women (cisgender, transgender, and those who hold fluid identities that are subject to gender-based violence). It is a call to honor women''s agency over their bodies and their right to be safe and free, a call to move our bodies so that the freedom and energy we shake loose becomes a new energy bringing in a new future. A call to see, cherish, nurture, respect and protect our Mother Earth as we are not separate from her. Her life is our life.
"Raise the Vibration" features images from some of the hundreds of thousands of One Billion Rising events worldwide where activists, youth, survivors and artists take to the streets demanding an end violence against all women and girls. The risings are global, taking place in 180 countries; throughout Africa, Asia and South America. All 29 states in India are Rising. Hundreds of cities, high schools, theaters, towns in Germany, Poland, Italy, & the US are Rising. "Bodies raging, bodies ready, bodies that will not be contained . bodies moving, dancing . dignity, integrity ... dancing to know my body . Dance into this landscape . dance for our sons and daughters, dance the new world," - Eve Ensler
Together, we RISE to free all women (cisgender, transgender, and those who hold fluid identities) from sexual, physical, racial, economic, political, socio-cultural, ideological and climate crisis violence. RISE to end rape, battery, incest, sexual harassment, female genital mutilation, sexual slavery and trafficking, child marriage, femicide, sexual, gender and reproductive oppression, violence towards LGBTQIA+ communities. RISE to end capitalism, colonization, racism, imperialism, war and climate catastrophe. WATCH/SHARE the video RISE 2020: Raise the Vibration, plan a RISING, a V-DAY benefit production, or a CITY OF JOY screening or house party in your college or community.        V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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FREE IN THE TIME OF COVID-19 AND THE BLACK LIVES MATTER MOVEMENT "We are a society that has been structured from top to bottom by race. You don't get beyond that by deciding not to talk about it anymore. It will always come back; it will always reassert itself over and over again." - Kimberl? Williams Crenshaw I was released from prison in October of 2018 and have been home now for a year and eight months. I remember counting the years and days of my confinement with a heavy heart, now I count my days of freedom with pleasure and gratitude. We measure time in many different ways but for me these are the most precious of times, not only because I am free, but because I am experiencing history for Black Americans in my own backyard. The police killing of George Floyd combined with the Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare the festering sore of indifference for the most marginalized groups of people in society. This legacy of slavery and white supremacy that America has perpetrated for far too long needs to be addressed and dismantled.
For the last several days and nights of protest, Americans are confronting the systemic racism in our country with a vengeance, we are coming out in numbers, strong and powerful. We are tired of the blatant injustices put upon black shoulders each and every day of our lives for centuries. We are tired of being left out of the conversations. We are tired of being portrayed as menacing, threatening, dangerous, lazy and no good. We are tired of our Black men and women being killed by the police. I mourn for George Perry Floyd, Freddie Gray, Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland, Laquan McDonald, Tamir Rice and all the other men and women whose lives were taken. I mourn for the known and unknown and not just about police brutality but for the racism that permeates our world and provides a platform for this injustice that dictates that it''s ok to murder Black people and their lives have less significance than whites. I am saddened and outraged by our history of lynching/killing/executing black people, the knees of white racist America has been on our necks too long and change is in the making, justice has been denied for far too long. We have suffered with our children having the most inferior schools and educators, our neighborhoods are food deserts with liquor stores on every corner, our communities are without adequate resources available for mental and physical health care, we are discriminated against in housing and job opportunities and are unproportionally herded into the criminal justice system because of the color of our skin. We are in dire times with a demagogue president who continues bombarding the media with deliberate seditious rhetoric, who campaigned against the Central Park Five in 1989, and was furious about Colin Kaepernick taking a knee to protest in silence. Who reportedly tweeted "when the looting starts, the shooting starts," the racially charged statement that dates back to the civil rights era and is known to have been invoked in 1967 by a white police chief Walter Headly during hearings about crime in Florida city. "The challenge of the 21st century is not to demand equal opportunity in the machinery of oppression, but rather to identify and dismantle those structures in which racism continues to be embedded." - Angela Davis This pandemic spotlights the indifference towards the black population and the poor in our society who are dying at three times the rates of whites. The movement that is sweeping this country is one that has finally reached its time. This has been the perfect environment for change, with the pandemic that occurred and Floyd''s unnecessary death at the hands of police. Now is the time for change, now is the time for open discussion and now is the time to reimagine the world we want to live in. We can't change what happened in the past, but we can determine what happens in our future. We can get this right! In Solidarity, Roslyn Smith READ Roz's ongoing blog series, DISPATCHES FROM BEYOND INCARCERATION SUPPORT black led grassroots groups, engage in racial justice work and system change. We encourage you to research who is doing the work in your immediate community, follow their lead on how you can best help, and use social media to amplify and support.        V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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One Billion Rising calls upon the Nigerian government to end SARS, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, which has a brutal history of unlawful arrests, kidnapping, harassment, extortion and killings. As the government sought to end two weeks of marches against police brutality that have mushroomed into broader nationwide demonstrations, thousands of Nigerians - spurred on by young people - have taken to the streets to protest SARS. While the government announced Sunday that the unit was being disbanded, soldiers opened fire into protesting crowds in Lagos late Tuesday night. News media are reporting that one person was killed and 30 people were injured, but reports are coming in from the ground that 80 peaceful youth protestors were shot and many brutally murdered. We are also hearing reports that the army is further going to hospitals to kill survivors. Violence against humanity is a calamity across the world, this is why we RISE IN SOLIDARITY. OBR is rising in solidarity with the people of Nigeria - calling for an end of the brutal killings happening in Lagos, Nigeria. We call for the Government''s accountability on the recent killings. The perpetrators of the killings must be brought to justice. Protesters are demanding reform across law enforcement in Nigeria, and the system of policing system that was put in place during colonialism and remains rooted in colonial oppression.
Activists on the ground are calling: For the Nigerian government to #EndSARS now. We stand in solidarity with activists on the ground. #EndSARS, prosecute officers accused of extortion, torture and extrajudicial killings. Hold the government responsible. #EndSARS. - Colani Hlatjwako, One Billion Rising Africa Coordinator and One Billion Rising TAKE ACTION: Share this message widely and activate and educate your networks. Together, let''s stand together in global solidarity with the activists and the Nigerian people and shine a light on these atrocities. READ about what''s happening:
THIS FRIDAY - VOICES: the Virtual Listening Tour with Aja Monet, Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble and Mandy Harris Williams in conversation, Sistering and Storytelling in the Age of Social Media
Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble is an Associate Professor at UCLA in the Departments of Information Studies, African American Studies, and Gender Studies and Co-Director of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry. She is the author of the best-selling book, "Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism", and is co-editor of The Intersectional Internet: Race, Sex, Culture and Class Online, and Emotions, Technology & Design. Mandy Harris Williams is an LA based artist, educator and radio host. Mandy's work focuses on desirability privilege as a real and mythological market and political force, encouraging us to think more critically about social media and the internet, advocating for #BrownupYourFeed to make social media feeds more representational. Tune in:        V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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Join Us!
WomenWorkersRising.org/TownHall The rapid spread of Coronavirus across the globe has revealed what has always been a glaring truth for so many of the essential workers who are the backbone of our society: the most essential are least valued, are treated as most expendable. It is the working class and poor who are most vulnerable to the virus and the economic disaster that Covid-19 has laid bare. And often it is women who are holding the frontline. To respond to this crisis, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal and playwright, V-Day and One Billion Rising founder Eve Ensler bring you a special virtual WOMEN WORKERS RISING Town Hall on Tuesday, 21 April via Zoom and Facebook Live and featuring: Bonnie Castillo, RN and Executive Director of National Nurses United, California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee This is the first of two town halls that will look at the needs of frontline and essential workers, including women working in domestic violence shelters where the crisis is also being acutely felt, as numbers are increasing for women who staying home is not safe. The conversation will touch upon these essential workers and their experiences especially women and including healthcare workers, domestic workers, farmworkers, grocery store workers, food and agricultural workers, mortuary and funeral service workers, delivery people, garbage collectors, drivers, cooks, janitors, law enforcement, mass transit workers, and bank employees as our country faces this unprecedented pandemic. Our goal is to share information with you about the challenges being faced by essential workers, as well as about the remedies we have at hand for supporting them. Please join us and spread the word. Tuesday, 21 April #WomenWorkersRising        V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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To Read V''s full letter to activists on the 2021 changes, click here. V-Day 2021 SEASON ANNOUNCED 2021 Dear V-Activists: At the beginning of each season when we sit down to write to you - the countless activists around the world who are the lifeblood of the V-Day movement - we take stock of the political and social realities playing out on local, regional, national and global levels and how they may be impacting you. As a team, we ask ourselves some difficult but important questions:
These are not questions we take lightly; rather they are deep and profound matters we ponder every year with time, care, introspection and unyielding love for this movement. The Covid-19 pandemic's impact on communities of color around the world and the uprising for racial justice in the United States and across the globe has shown that as a movement we must build on our years of work of amplifying the voices of marginalized communities and creating spaces for them to be seen and heard to do even more to center the voices of artists and activists who have for too long been pushed to the margins. This is a moment of reckoning and it is clear to us that the voices of Black women artists need to take center stage in a sustained and focused way. For this reason, The Vagina Monologues will be taking its bow and exiting from the V-Day campaigns. It will of course remain a play, but it will no longer be done as part of V-Day. Instead, we are thrilled to announce the VOICES campaign.
Many of you may be wondering how you will raise consciousness and funds in the 2020/2021 season for the deserving beneficiaries you have supported in the past through V-Day productions of The Vagina Monologues. We have curated a diverse and robust menu of offerings: VOICES CAMPAIGN Voices is a new interdisciplinary performance arts project and campaign grounded in Black women's stories by V-Day to unify the vision of ending violence against women: cis women, trans women, and non binary people across the African Continent and African Diaspora. Directed by poet/organizer Aja Monet, V-Day's new Artistic Creative Director, Voices Campaign. Our goal is to use art to embody and inspire solidarity-making in our collective imagination. Follow the campaign as it emerges on Instagram @visforvoices and voices.vday.org. Many more details to follow, we invite you to join the process. DISMANTLE PATRIARCHY, YOUTH ART CONTEST A contest challenging college students, ages 22 and under, to envision how they might change the larger societal system of patriarchy to create an accepting society through visual art, music, essay, story, poetry, video or photography. Submissions can be in the form of essay, poetry, music, art, photography, film, and more. Read more and enter. RAISE THE VIBRATION Create an artistic piece foregrounding the voices of your community and create an online or in person event. Invite local writers, activists and artists to participate. Utilize the power of online performance and create a new space for your art and activism and support of local groups led by and for survivors. ONE BILLION RISING: RISING GARDENS Rising Gardens is a defiant creative call for revival, restoration and transformation. Gardens as a compassionate call for justice - because one of the greatest injustices of our time has been the destruction and eradication of Mother Earth, parallel to the ongoing and escalating gender-based violence. Ready to RISE? Visit OneBillionRising.org CITY OF JOY: TURNING PAIN TO POWER Screen the City of Joy documentary which tells the story of the first class of women at City of Joy, and chronicles the process by which such a transformational place came to be, from its origins with the women survivors themselves, to the opening of the center''s doors. For over 22 years, V-Day has unleashed vast grassroots, anti-violence work on college campuses and in communities - visionary work that has been survivor-led and focused, all the while revealing the power of art and activism to change culture and systems. Beginning with and inspired by The Vagina Monologues, new artistic works, films and campaigns have emerged from this movement - from Afghanistan Is Everywhere, the V-Day Safe House for the Girls in Kenya, The Indian Country Project, The Missing and Murdered Women in Ju?rez campaign, and Any One of Us: Words From Prison, to Swimming Upstream, the City of Joy and V-World Farm in Congo, the documentary films Until The Violence Stops and City of Joy, Artistic Uprising events in NYC and on the US/Mexico border, the V20 series of short films, and more. We have accomplished so much. WELCOME TO V-SEASON 2020-2021: V IS FOR VOICES
V Photo by Brigitte Lacombe        V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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RISE ON JUNETEENTH
This Friday, 19 June is Juneteenth - the 135th anniversary of the day the news of emancipation reached the last group of slaves in Texas, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1 January 1863. (Juneteenth is also know as Emancipation Day or Freedom Day). Join V-Day, One Billion Rising and City of Joy as we RISE and proclaim Black Lives Matter this weekend of national days of action anchored by the Movement for Black Lives. Events are being scheduled throughout the United States in the streets and online. While this day is sacred for Black Americans every year, this year it takes on added meaning against the backdrop of countless people taking to the streets across United States and the world to declare that BLACK LIVES MATTER in the wake of the senseless murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and the countless other Black men and women at the hands of the police. For far too many centuries, anti-Blackness has been the underpinning of how our society is structured. It is time to dismantle it. As a movement of anti-violent activists, we know the intersections that race, gender, sexual orientation and violence make along the trajectory of a person's life; just look at the experience of Black trans women, who are disproportionately murdered in our society. We must meet this moment with everything we have. Now is the time to mobilize in a way we have never done before. We must show up for our Black brothers and sisters and stand in solidarity with them in the face of Trump's glaring racism, to demand that police forces be defunded so that resources can be channeled to true community needs, from housing and education to mental health support. Together let's join the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL)'s SIXNINETEEN mobilization on Juneteenth weekend, 19-21 June. Take action from home, in your community, or in Washington, D.C. Visit sixnineteen.com for information on how you can be involved in this historic weekend of actions. If you take to the streets, please wear a mask and practice social distancing as much as possible. Let's listen. Let's donate. Let's show up. Let's love. Let's not stop until ALL BLACK LIVES MATTER. Let's RISE! See you in the streets and online, JUNETEENTH NOW - Get us Free - Friday, 19 June, 7-9pm ET
"On #Juneteenth, an incredible group of artists will gather for a Black-led, multicultural celebration. An homage to the 400 years that Black people have lived in this nation, the program will non-linearly jump through our past and present, highlighting Black resistance, resilience, healing and joy... the evening will feature performances from a wide variety of artists... A variety of writers will speak... and the entertainment will be rounded out with jaw-dropping musical numbers from award-winning theatre stars... As our nation remains gripped in protests against police violence, this program will amplify calls for justice while simultaneously highlighting the joy, virtuosity and excellence that are too-often absent in media portrayals of Black culture. And - against the President's white nationalism - the show will offer a vision of a beautiful, justice-oriented, multicultural America in striking contrast." - Middlechurch For full details, to view the lineup of incredible artists, writers and entertainment and to register, visit: bit.ly/get-us-free        V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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CONGRATULATIONS RADA!
We are thrilled to share the news that One Billion Rising Coordinator Rada Boric has been elected to the Croatian parliament! Rada is a member of the New Left party in Croatia and the We Can coalition, a Croatian platform of local green and progressive movements that formed a progressive political party and won seven seats in Sunday''s parliamentary election. "We showed in the span of a month and a half what courage means - that''s what we brought to the table from activism. We also showed what creativity and respect for people and talking to them can do," stated Rada in Slobodna Dalmacija, when commenting on the electoral success of the platform. "What the Prime Minister resented about us was our political activism and we think that many had been politically dormant in the past and the success of the election reflected that. This success is not just the success of our platform. I would say it is the cumulative success of 30 years of activism, gathered from different movements - anti-war, anti police powers, for women''s rights," she added. In Parliament, Rada will continue her lifelong commitment and advocacy to advance gender equality in Croatia, including fighting for a modern Abortion Act to provide women with free, safe, and accessible medical treatment and contraception. She will advocate for sex education, a modern civic education program designed to help students understand gender equality, and equal rights for the LGBTQ+ community, including adoptions and foster care. Rada is a feminist linguist and activist who has coordinated One Billion Rising across Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia since the campaign launched in 2012. Prior to One Billion Rising, Rada has been a pillar of the V-Day movement, producing benefit performances across Europe. Rada is a member of the Initiative for the Women''s Court for Former Yugoslavia, regional coordinator of V-Day, the global movement against violence against women, and a member of the Nobel Women''s Initiative Advisory Board. In 2012 she was elected vice-president of the European Women Lobby (representing Women''s Network Croatia). In 2013, the Croatian President awarded her with the decoration Order of Danica Hrvatska for her work on promoting women''s human rights. Please join us in congratulating Rada! JUST OUT! READ KEVIN POWELL''S POEM "WE THEM PEOPLE"
We are thrilled to share this new poem written by Kevin Powell. Kevin is a poet, journalist, civil and human rights activist, public speaker, and author of 14 books, including his new one, WHEN WE FREE THE WORLD, about the present and future of America (exclusively an ebook on Apple Books). Kevin is currently writing as part of our 'Artists Rising'' series. we them people dream on SHARE the poem: rise.link/wethempeople RISE FOR YULIA TSVETKOVA
Yulia Tsvetkova, a Russian artist, has been criminally charged with "production and dissemination of pornographic materials" after she shared stylized depictions of vaginas on social media. Trouble with authorities started after Yulia planned to stage a play called "Blue and Pink" about gender stereotypes in her city. She ultimately cancelled the play due to pressure from the authorities. "I don''t know which was worse for the authorities, the play about gender, which they don''t understand, and they are afraid of, or the other play, which was pretty political, very sharp. I guess it''s the combination of both that got me here," Tsvetkova said over a phone call. "After that I was called to the police station every week or every other week." Tsvetkova was fined 75,000 roubles ($1,000) on Friday on charges of spreading "gay propaganda" among minors by publishing drawings of same-sex couples with children online. The court in the eastern city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur confirmed the 27-year-old had been fined under a 2013 law that bans disseminating "propaganda on non-traditional sexual relations" among young Russians - legislation condemned by rights groups. The pornography charge came after the police discovered a group called "The Vagina Monologues" (named after V's play) that Tsvetkova founded and moderated on Russian social media network VKontakte. Yulia is currently unable to leave her town and is waiting for a court date. If convicted, Yulia faces up to 6 years in prison. We must stand with Yulia and RISE in her defense. Here is how you can help:
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JOY! 18th Class Begins at City of Joy in Congo
Welcome to City of Joy 18th Class! We are thrilled to announce that a new class of young women is arriving in Bukavu this week. The City of Joy is a revolutionary leadership center for women survivors of gender violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is a place where women turn their pain into power, a place that restores women''s sense of agency over their lives as they learn real, practical life skills to feed their futures, and connects them to the global V-Day movement, one billion strong. From the return of warmth and joy into women''s lives, to a reconnection to their bodies, to the feeling of empowerment each woman feels when she masters a new skill or acquires life-changing knowledge, the City of Joy gives women a platform to transform their pasts into fuel for a revolution of the mind, body, and community. Over 1472 women have graduated to date. A woman who comes through the City of Joy is forever changed by it. She laughs more, she leads more, she gives more. Join us in welcoming the 18th Class! LEARN more about City of Joy Give Joy, DONATE Today
Ready to Netflix and Joy?
The story of City of Joy is the story of love and community. It is the story of what happens when women who are sexual survivors live together in community, heal themselves and each other, and create their destiny on their own terms. The transformation that is seen at City of Joy is profound - the most abused become the most powerful who turn poison into medicine, isolation into community, shame into self-love, silence into story. This is the story of what happens when women have time to heal and truly release and transform trauma, when women are loved and held and nurtured and treated with deepest kindness, dignity and intention. CITY OF JOY follows the first class of women at revolutionary leadership center City of Joy, from which the film derives its title, and weaves their journey as burgeoning leaders with that of the center's founders (Dr. Denis Mukwege, 2018 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, women''s rights activist Christine Schuler-Deschryver and V (formerly Eve Ensler), founder of V-Day and One Billion Rising) - three individuals who imagined a place where women who have suffered horrific rape and abuse can heal and become powerful voices of change for their country. "How does one find joy amid unspeakable tragedy? Madeleine Gavin's documentary City of Joy, about a community built around women who have survived horrific violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), gives us a glimpse at both an incredible injustice still occurring today, and how Congolese women are combating it with their own grassroots movement." - Clara Mae in The Guardian During this Covid-19 pandemic, gather friends and community virtually and safely, watch CITY OF JOY and make use of the screening guide for small discussion groups via Zoom, Whatsapp, or Facetime. Trigger Warning: Prepare to Support Survivors and Audience Members LEARN more about City of Joy WATCH the Documentary Film on Netflix HOST a watch party        V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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RISE 2020: Happy International Women's Day
"International Women's Day was initiated at the 1910 International Socialist Women's conference to annually honor working women around the world. This day is to cherish, respect and honor the dignity of women workers - farmers, nurses, mothers, restaurant workers, factory workers, domestic workers, teachers, retail workers - and to demand one fair wage, equal pay for equal work, healthcare, and safety on the job free from harassment, poor working conditions and accidents. It's a day to rise with our sisters in solidarity to make sure those who work the hardest are treated the most fairly." - Eve Ensler For #IWD2020, we RAISE THE VIBRATION through Action, Art, Connection, Imagination, and Love as One Billion Rising activists, activists & youth create V-Day benefits, One Billion Rising and Raise the Vibration creative resistance events across the planet. Celebrate Women Rising Globally One Billion Rising 2020: Together, we RISE to free all women (cisgender, transgender, and those who hold fluid identities) from sexual, physical, racial, economic, political, socio-cultural, ideological and climate crisis violence. RISE to end rape, battery, incest, sexual harassment, female genital mutilation, sexual slavery and trafficking, child marriage, femicide, sexual, gender and reproductive oppression, and violence towards LGBTQIA+ communities. RISE to end capitalism, colonization, racism, imperialism, war and climate catastrophe. RAISING THE VIBRATION through action, art, connection, imagination and love. This is what it looked like...
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DOCUMENT & SHARE YOUR RISINGS;
Across the globe, One Billion Rising activists are RAISING THE VIBRATION through music, chanting, dance, drumming, original monologues, and more, staging actions and events that reflect the intersecting challenges, needs and desires of all women and girls and their communities. Risings are taking place during the month of February and leading up to 8 March, #InternationalWomensDay. The Risings are grassroots and global, led by youth, survivors, artists, and activists, who determine how and why they rise, with and for their communities. The One Billion Rising movement is vast and textured, and each year it grows, deepening a grassroots commitment to end all forms of violence - against women and girls and our planet. NEW: Tell Us The Story Of Your Rising - Raise the Vibration Blog Series Through One Billion Rising, you shook the earth through the massive RISINGS in which over ONE BILLION people danced to end the epidemic of violence, we have shifted consciousness and broken the deadly silence. And every day, you stage art in your community for social change, you RISE, you are in the streets rising against racist patriarchy. You have made ending sexual violence a front-page issue, never to be silenced again. Beginning today, we are inviting OBR activists worldwide to write blogs about their events and submit them for publishing on onebillionrising.org, amplifying the voices of the movement. Some prompts to get your started, keep in mind as you write your piece -
Please keep your piece to under 1000 words. Submit your piece HERE. Thank you, we cannot wait to read your stories! DOCUMENT & SHARE YOUR RISINGS
Over the past years, on or around 14 February, thousands of Risings took place around the world, in hundreds of cities, in virtually every country on earth. We have made history. In 2020, we RISE and RAISE THE VIBRATION and we want the world to witness every sight and sound of this extraordinary global action. HERE'S HOW! Share everything you do for One Billion Rising. Share your photos, video and audio updates with the global audience! For your RISING event(s), please share your photos, video and audio updates with the global audience so they can experience it as it happens - or as close to it! Before and during the events, utilize social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat. Tell the story of what's happening using these channels. Be sure to tag us and use the official hashtags #1BillionRising #RaiseTheVibration #RiseInSolidarity and #RiseResistUnite to include your posts on our digital hub at onebillionrising.org and across our social channels for the world to see. The more we share, we spread the word and trend on social media platforms around the world, reaching even more people. After your event, you can upload high quality images and videos to us here. Tag us or post directly to our accounts: Facebook/vday NOTE: If you want to share your posts with the global audience, please be sure to make your Facebook and Instagram posts public. For tips, profile and background images and more, visit our page on documenting your risings.        V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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ICYMI V''s Birthday Wish - RISE & Support Essential Women Workers on the Front Line
"In this time of the Great Transition where we move from transaction to connection, from dying for profit to living for people and the earth, a major ingredient of this transformation will be seeing and honoring and valuing and protecting those who make our lives possible." - V
The rapid spread of coronavirus across the globe has revealed what has always been a glaring truth for so many of the essential workers who are the backbone of our society: inequity. From the people who pick our food to the people who deliver our packages, it is the working class and poor who are most vulnerable to the virus and the economic disaster that Covid-19 has laid bare. So often these frontline workers are women. Many of them are activists, young leaders, and women who are part of our movement. From the United States to India, Guatemala to Thailand, we are hearing about great need from across our vast global network. While some are struggling with isolation and increased proximity to potentially violent situations within their homes, others are struggling with making rent, feeding their families and accessing masks and protective gear to keep themselves and their loved ones safe.
Workers and health care professionals in every country are on the front lines of the crisis, risking their lives to take care of other people, to keep food on the shelves, to deliver necessary services, and to heal those who are sick. For so many survivors, home is not a safe place. Advocates worldwide are providing shelter as well as posting information and resources online. As the world faces the Covid-19 pandemic, activists, artists, survivors, youth around the world are rising to help impacted communities, frontline workers, and survivors. CELEBRATE V''S BIRTHDAY Your donation will provide much needed assistance and hope for essential women in these uncertain times. Happy Birthday V! With Love & Solidarity,        V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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Rise for Farmworker Women on the Frontlines of the COVID-19 Pandemic   We need to protect the ones who sustain us. Campesinas are risking their lives to put food on our tables while they struggle to feed their own families, lack access to protective equipment and are unable to practice social distancing. The vast majority cannot access financial protections put forth by the federal government. ".the work does not stop. We were told that we have to continue working. They gave us a letter that says that we are essential workers. One fear we have is that we don't have a driver's license. They told us that if we have the letter, at the moment that we get stopped by the police and get asked for our license, well we travel in fear of being out in the street. We all need your help and especially those who have small children who have to leave them at home in order to work. We hope we get some help. We hope there will be help for all." - Ruzelia, Farmworker RISE IN SOLIDARITY WITH FARMWORKERS The rapid spread of Coronavirus across the globe has revealed what has always been a glaring truth for so many of the essential workers who are the backbone of our society: inequity. From the people who pick our food to the people who deliver our packages, it is the working class and poor who are most vulnerable to the virus and the economic disaster that COVID-19 has laid bare. V-Day and One Billion Rising have partnered with Alianza Nacional de Campesinas / National Farmworkers Women''s Alliance for many years on our intersectional work to end violence against all women and girls, and our Women Workers Rising initiatives. Let us RISE in support of Alianza and farmworkers as they face unprecedented risks in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. "There is no standard for safety orientation. Sometimes we''re hearing they just get a five-minute talk - stay six feet apart, don''t do this, don''t do that - but we are still working in big crowds. It feels like it''s not being taken seriously because the money is more important." - Irene De B, Farmworker The daily life of a farmworker is tough on any given day but in the context of the Coronavirus it is even harder. According to The Guardian, in California, the state's 400,000 plus farmworkers are exempt from shelter in place measures and do not have the option of working from home. If they stay home for fear of being infected, they risk losing their jobs. The days are long. Early mornings and full days mean that by the time a farmworker is off shift and gets to the store, the shelves are empty. Many are living on the edge of hunger. And working conditions do not allow for social distancing, which has shown to be an effective defense against the virus. Many farmworkers travel to and from work in packed vans and live in crowded housing; social distancing is a luxury they cannot afford. And while these essential workers are picking the nation's food, they are without access to soap and water and protective masks and gloves. In addition, if they fall sick, they do not have access to benefits like paid sick leave to stay home. For farmworkers - many of whom are women - the choice is between earning their daily wage and being without shelter and food for their families. The Trump administration's inhumane immigration policies further heighten these hardships - when undocumented farm workers fall sick, many are fearful to seek out testing and health support because they do not want to be detained. Without testing and care, their own health and that of other farmworkers is put at risk. With women and their families, the situation is dire - they are often forced to leave their young children at home in the care of older siblings because the schools are closed. This situation, as well as the fact that domestic violence and rape crisis providers are having to revise services because of the pandemic, means that farmworker women are ever more vulnerable to violence and abuse. Rise for Farmworker Women on the Frontlines JOIN US! Take Action: SPREAD the Word across your networks: Make the connection between the food on your table and the workers who made it possible. SAMPLE SOCIAL MEDIA COPY: We need to protect the ones who sustain us. Campesinas are risking their lives to put food on our tables while they struggle to feed their own families, lack access to protective equipment and are unable to practice social distancing. The vast majority cannot access financial protections put forth by the federal government. The rapid spread of #Coronavirus across the globe has revealed what has always been a glaring truth for so many of the essential workers who are the backbone of our society: inequity. From the people who pick our food to the people who deliver our packages, it is the working class and poor who are most vulnerable to the virus and the economic disaster that #COVID19 has laid bare. #VDay and #1BillionRising have partnered with #AlianzaNacionalDeCampesinas / #NationalFarmworkersWomensAlliance for many years on our intersectional work to end violence against all women and girls, and our #WomenWorkersRising initiatives. Let us RISE in support of Alianza and farmworkers as they face unprecedented risks in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. RISE IN SOLIDARITY WITH FARMWORKERS, THE ESSENTIAL WORKERS PUTTING FOOD ON OUR TABLES IN THE FACE OF COVID-19! For our full statement (in English & Spanish) & info on how you can help, visit: onebillionrising.org/riseforfarmworkerwomen #RiseForFarmworkerWomen #RiseForCampesinas #CampesinasRising #RiseResistUnite #RiseInSolidarity #UntilTheViolenceStops @campesinasunite @one_billion_rising @vdayorg @eveensler SUPPORT Farmworker Women, Support Alianza's work: As they work jointly with their member organizations and other farmworker advocacy groups to address these specific challenges and needs that farmworkers and their families are experiencing they are also making preparations should people be laid off and not have money to buy food, get medical attention, pay their rent, or if they lose their homes and need shelter. Advocate for safe living conditions and working conditions, with access to safe drinking water, soap and water to wash and sanitize their hands, and protective materials such as gloves or masks. EDUCATE policy makers about the specific needs and challenges of farmworker families and communities and that whatever benefits are being made available through legislative packages reach these vulnerable workers and communities, including:
Find your Representatives at https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative Find your Senator at https://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm GET INFORMED, READ Alianza's statement: https://www.alianzanacionaldecampesinas.org/news Para espa?ol, haga clic aqu?        V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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Help Expose the #PPE crisis, Stand in Solidarity with Nurses
Hospitals are asking nurses to battle this highly infectious virus with little to no protection. This is unacceptable. At a White House briefing, President Trump said millions of masks were in production and that the federal government was making efforts to address the shortages - but he did not provide any details as to when or how many masks would be made available. At a moment when we are asking nurses and other health care workers to step up and protect people, we must be able to protect them as well. All of our lives are at stake. If nurses get sick, they can't take care of patients. And if they can't see patients, this pandemic will spiral further out of control. The time is NOW to take all precautions to protect nurses and health care workers on the frontlines. Thank you for helping expose this crisis and for standing in solidarity with nurses. National Nurses United        V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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Dearest Activists, Friends, Supporters, As we move towards the end of this most unusual and unstable year, we are filled with gratitude for all that you have given and all that you do. Looking ahead to 2021, V-Day, One Billion Rising, & City of Joy activists everywhere are preparing RISINGs worldwide through Action, Art, Connection, Imagination and Love. This Giving season consider supporting V-Day, the global activist movement to end violence against all women and girls (cisgender and transgender), those who hold fluid identities, nonbinary people and the planet. 31 December is the last day to make charitable donations in order to claim them on your 2020 tax return.
At City of Joy in the Democratic Republic of Congo, our 18th class graduated a week ago, turning their pain into power that is fueling change across a nation. In Kabul at the City of Knowledge, women continue to attend classes despite the recent spike of violence targeting educational institutions. And at the Tasaru V-Day Safe House for the Girls in Narok County, Kenya, girls are unabashedly breaking taboos by rejecting Female Genital Mutilation and redirecting their lives and those of their communities'' through education with schools re-opening in Kenya on 4 January. One Billion Rising Global Coordinators and teams worldwide are preparing Rising Gardens events making the deep connection between the wellbeing of women and the Earth. And with V-Day's new VOICES project, our vast global network is buzzing with excitement to see and hear the new artistic piece that will emerge, centering Black women's voices from across the Diaspora at this critical time in our history as a planet. In the face of the Covid-19 global pandemic that has ripped through the world and shed light on inequity across all cultures, our grassroots activists are pushing boundaries and engaging in dialogue, with art and activism always at the forefront. They are Rising against a wave of right-wing nationalism, white supremacy, colorism, fascism, xenophobia, misogyny, femicide, homophobia, transphobia, corporate greed and climate destruction. And they are Rising to center the voices and experiences of the most marginalized. They have met the moment by escalating the urgency with which they are fighting for gender, climate, economic and racial justice. Your solidarity and support of our work makes this movement-building work possible. And now, more than ever, our work is needed. Please consider donating today so that we can keep fighting for the world we all envision - one where all women and girls (and therefore all of us) thrive instead of merely surviving. Your love has sustained us, and your trust and generosity has been our North Star - a constant that we have and will come back to, time and again. For that, and for so much more, we thank you. With V-love, V (formerly Eve Ensler), Susan, Christine, Monique, Purva, Tony, Aja, Carl, Leila, Roslyn & Swetha
DONATE to V-Day Your Solidarity & Support Make This Movement Possible. Please consider giving to V-Day this season. P.S. If your gift is already on its way, thank you! V-Day is a California 501(c)(3) public charity and is one of the Top-Rated organizations on both Charity Navigator and Guidestar.        V-Day, One Billion Rising |
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This giving season, give JOY, support the women at City of Joy.
25 May is our Founder V's (formerly Eve Ensler) 67th birthday. To celebrate this day and to honor our commitment to frontline women, donate to the 
Ruth Bader Ginsburg died yesterday at sundown at the age of 87 on the eve of Rosh Hashanah. It's said people who die on Rosh Hashanah are of greatest righteousness. She gave us her life over and over. She was a hero and a strategist and a brilliant legal mind and first and foremost, she opened this world for women. We mourn her, we celebrate her.
We are in the midst of a rising tide of right-wing nationalism, white supremacy, fascism, tyranny, hatred of and fear of immigrants, misogyny, femicide, homophobia, transphobia, corporate greed and climate destruction. The United States election includes the Presidency, which is currently occupied by a fascist, misogynist and corrupt Predator-in-Chief. The rapid spread of the Covid-19 pandemic and an inadequate federal response has worsened the effects of this tide. Elections are one way to voice your support of issues you care about.
At Monday's rally, we will be introducing Elena the Essential Worker, whom we hope can stand on the shoulders of Rosie the Riveter to serve as a new face in the fight for economic, racial, and gender justice!
In this inaugural year, VOICES will create a new piece curated by the magnificent poet and organizer 
In Russia, portraying women''s bodies can get you arrested.
25 May is our Founder V's (formerly Eve Ensler) 67th birthday. To celebrate this day and to honor our commitment to frontline women, donate to the 
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