V-Day (movement) - About V-Day

About V-Day

In 1998, a non-profit charity, "V-Day", was incorporated with the intent of using performances of The Vagina Monologues to raise money to benefit female victims of violence and sexual abuse. Since its inception, the movement has expanded its use of art and activism to include film — most notably the documentary Until The Violence Stops (2004), readings of the compilation A Memory, Monologue, A Rant, and a Prayer, marches, and festivals such as UNTIL THE VIOLENCE STOPS: NYC (June 2006), and the ten year anniversary V TO THE TENTH at the Louisiana Superdome and New Orleans Arena in 2008.

Beginning in early 2001, V-Day activities expanded to a host of international activities, with V-Day hosting leadership summits for women in Afghanistan, an international gathering of activists worldwide in Rome in September 2002, launching the Karama program in the Middle East, coordinating community briefings on the missing and murdered women of Juarez, Mexico, and more. In some societies where The Vagina Monologues are not permitted V-Day events revolve around other works developed by V-Day, including the book A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant, and a Prayer, an anthology of writings about violence against women.

V-Day included the first ever all transgender version of The Vagina Monologues in 2004, with a performance by eighteen notable transwomen under the mentoring of Jane Fonda and Andrea James of Deep Stealth Productions.

In 2010, more than 5,400 V-Day events took place in over 1,500 locations in the U.S. and around the world. To date, the V-Day movement has raised over $80 million and educated millions about the issue of violence against women and the efforts to end it, crafted international educational, media and PSA campaigns, launched the Karama program in the Middle East, reopened shelters, and funded over 12,000 community-based anti-violence programs and safe houses in Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Kenya, South Dakota, Egypt and Iraq. The 'V' in V-Day stands for Victory, Valentine and Vagina.

In 2011, V-Day and the Fondation Panzi (DRC), with support from UNICEF, opened the City of Joy, a new community for women survivors of gender violence in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). City of Joy will provide up to 180 Congolese women a year with an opportunity to benefit from group therapy; self-defense training; comprehensive sexuality education (covering HIV/AIDS, family planning); economic empowerment; storytelling; dance; theater; ecology and horticulture. Created from their vision, Congolese women will run, operate and direct City of Joy themselves.