V-Season 2009 On Pace To Be Largest To Date: Registration Still Open!

Since registration opened in October, over 1,000 V-Day organizers have signed up to produce V-Day benefit productions of The Vagina Monologues, A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and A Prayer, Any One Of Us: Words From Prison and screenings of V-Day's Until The Violence Stops and the PBS documentary What I Want My Words To Do To You in their colleges, high schools and communities.

From Bangkok to Belgrade, Rwanda to Rhode Island, V-Day organizers everywhere are bringing the issue of violence against women to the forefront of their communities and raising funds to help end it.

In addition, V-Day is proud to announce that over 500 women and men have already registered to hold Congo Teach-Ins with their family, friends and neighbors. V-Day is partnering with the Enough Project and STAND to offer this downloadable PowerPoint presentation about the crisis in the DRC. The PowerPoint is designed to educate individuals and communities about the history and current situation in the DRC. It is a powerful tool to activate and motivate the public to put pressure on elected officials and raise awareness and funds for V-Day projects on the ground.

Registration to hold a V-Day benefit event in your community is still open.

Apply Now

Sign Up on vday.org to Hold a Congo Teach-In

V-Day Announces February "Turning Pain To Power Tour" Featuring Dr. Mukwege & Eve

To coordinate with our V-Season 2009 and our Spotlight on the Women and Girls of the Congo, we are excited to announce the February TURNING PAIN TO POWER TOUR. Dr. Denis Mukwege, Director and Founder of the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Eve will tour five major cities in the US - New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Washington DC - to get the word out about violence against women and girls in the DRC and the efforts to end it. This tour will have a direct impact on what is happening in the DRC--a country rich in natural resources but weighed down by years of war and atrocities--by raising awareness and critical funds to save lives and provide refuge and support to a new wave of women leaders.

Dr. Mukwege is the godfather of the growing V-Men's movement. On the tour, he will address what motivates men to commit these crimes, and what men need to do and who they need to become to stop it. By sharing firsthand accounts and a psychological and physical understanding of sexual violence, Dr. Mukwege will shed light on what he calls 'sexual terrorism.' Through his work at Panzi, the doctor is modeling another way of being a man. By illustrating that it is not the majority of men who are raping in the Congo, but that the majority are silent there and everywhere, he encourages both men and women to be bold and stand up for the women of Congo.

The tour will be comprised of a series of educational and fundraising events. In each city, Eve will conduct a public interview with Dr. Mukwege about how to stop the ongoing femicide, what causes this level of violence and what life is like for women in the Congo.

Tour Schedule*

Wednesday, February 11, 8PM - New York, NY
"Turning Pain To Power in the Congo - Dr. Denis Mukwege In Conversation with Eve Ensler"
92nd Street Y - Kaufmann Concert Hall - Lexington at 92nd Street, NYC
Tickets: $27, on sale now
For tickets and more info, visit
http://www.92y.org/shop/event_detail.asp?productid=T%2DLC5WL10

Saturday, February 14, 8PM - Los Angeles, CA
V-Day USC Performance of "The Vagina Monologues" with special guest speakers Eve Ensler and Dr. Denis Mukwege
Location: USC Campus
Tickets: ticket information to be announced

Wednesday, February 18, 6PM - Redwood City, CA
The World Affairs Council and Global Philanthropy Forum host Dr. Denis Mukwege interviewed by Eve Ensler
Location: Redwood City, location to be announced
Tickets: ticket information to be announced

Thursday, February 19, 8PM - San Francisco, CA
City Arts & Lectures "Art & Politics" features Dr. Denis Mukwege interviewed by Eve Ensler,
Location: Herbst Theater, San Francisco
Tickets: $20, on sale now
For tickets and more info, visit http://www.cityarts.net/n.mukwege.html

Sunday, February 22, 2PM - Atlanta, GA
Dr. Denis Mukwege In Conversation with Eve Ensler
Location: The Carter Center
Tickets: ticket information to be announced

Wednesday, February 25 - Washington, DC (date to be confirmed)
Dr. Denis Mukwege In Conversation with Eve Ensler
Location: Howard University
Tickets: ticket information to be announced

*Events subject to change

Dr. Denis Mukwege Awarded United Nations Prize

Dr. Denis Mukwege of the Panzi Hospital in the DRC has been named winner of The United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights for 2008. Previous recipients of the award include Nelson Mandela, Amnesty International, Jimmy Carter, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Reverend Dr. Martin L. King.

Dr. Mukwege is the Director and Founder of the groundbreaking Panzi General Referral Hospital in Bukavu, South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) where he performs life-saving fistula surgeries on girls and women who have been brutally raped and mutilated in the Congolese war.

V-Day and UNICEF have partnered with the Panzi Hospital to build the City of Joy, a safe house project which will be a refuge for healed women, survivors of rape and torture who have been left without family and community. City of Joy will offer a safe haven, providing educational and income-generating opportunities, and support women in becoming the next leaders of the DRC.

The City of Greensboro breaks the Silence

CONGOCAST.ORG

Congocast.org Trailer from Congocast.org on Vimeo.

The Story

Robin Tabbiner and Wendy Merritt are from Wilmington, North Carolina, a beach town where life moves at a slower pace - a town where it's not uncommon to wear flip-flops to the office or leave work early with your surfboard in tow.

The women met in 2005, when Robin joined Wendy’s small group, a women’s bible study she lead through Port City Community Church. Robin, who had graduated from college the spring before, had been planning a move to Africa - she was just waiting for the right time and opportunity. Wendy was leading a very “normal” life – after college, she had settled down in Wilmington, bought a house and was working for a local mortgage brokerage firm; it had never crossed her mind to pick up and move halfway around the world.

Over time, it became clear to both women that their paths had crossed for a reason; within one year of meeting each other, they would move to the Democratic Republic of Congo to serve women and girls victimized by sexual violence. Through an organization called Answering the Call, Robin and Wendy were connected with a pastor in eastern Congo. Upon entering the Congo in August 2006, they rented a house and began building relationships with rape victims, serving children at two feeding centers and organizing events for local youth.

Once we learned of their plans to move to a country that our own State Department warns us to stay away from, we knew we had to tell their story. For three months before Robin and Wendy left for Congo, we spent time interviewing them, as well as their families and friends; they left the country armed with a video camera and plenty of tapes to document their experience, hopeful that their story and the stories of the Congolese women and children they went to serve would move us to get involved. Here’s how you can.

TO FOLLOW MORE OF THE STORY AND TO CHECK OUT THE WEBSITE VISIT: www.congocast.org

Model Spotlight: Noella Coursaris Musunka

Some of you might be thinking where is Congo in the grand scheme of things when it comes to the fashion world. We're barely seen behind the scenes; as designers, producers, the crew and lastly, models. Well we're out there and I happen to stumble across some drop dead gorgeous, underestimated talent. This is the first post in the Spotlight Model series.

Meet Noella Coursaris Musunka
"Noella Coursaris Musunka began her journey on the soil of the congo where a Congolese mother and Cyprus father brought her into this world.This example of Femine pulchritude embodies the zest, the vim and spontaineity of women that know they are inherently beautiful. As you would come to see,Noella burst with radiant energy and ardant love for life and humanity, in person and spurring out of her pictures, This Vigour extends to her professional as well as personal life.

Noella is perceived by many as a vessel of the enrichment darting from transculturalism. The congolese born, swiss educated , got her modeling career started off after she did the Agent Provocateur campaign , the well known lingerie compagnie.

Cheeky,hard working,focused such is Noella as a model. Her works include projects with entities such as IPOD,Virgin Mobile,Barclays,CDS covers... Various covers and magazines such as Cosmopolitan,Essence,GQ,New Women,Vixen, Mens Health,Arena,Pride... She also participated to a few video projects,the latest being the video of renowned UK artist Craig David.

Resolute,levelheaded and ambitious such is Noella as a business person.

Noella desires to utilize being one of the rare congolese model succesful internationaly and exercice social leadership in the Congo. She hopes to start a residential institution for the care and education of orphans.

They say that a book is a story for the mind and a song a story for the soul,Noella is a story for the eyes.

Somewhere from the heaven,her dearly loved father must be smiling at the unfolding of events in his daughter's life.

Written by Frederic N'sienie

The Game in DRC

The Game and crew recently embarked upon an African/European tour. The Game happened to make a stop in "Kin-sasha." He mesmerized the crowd with not only his music, but some of political views.
Peep the vid.

Worlds Aids Day

Yesterday was Worlds Aid Day. The purpose of WAD is to promote education and awareness about AIDS and HIV. WAD began in 1988 when a summit of health ministers saw that a united global effort was needed to stop the spreading of HIV. Check out Worlds aids day.org for more info.
Facts and Figures
International Figs
People living with HIV:
33 million people living with HIV worldwide
30.8 million adults
15.5 million women
2.0 million children under 15

Be Safe...Wrap it Up.