License to Thrive

V to the Tenth

Over 30,000 people attended the “V to the Tenth” event April 11-12 in New Orleans.  Celebrities such as Salma Hayak, Jane Fonda, Ali Larter and Rosario Dawson were in attendance and more than $700,000 was donated for local anti-violence efforts.  The event celebrated the 10th anniversary of V-Day.  V-Day is a global movement to stop violence against women and girls.  Through V-Day campaigns, local volunteers and college students produce annual benefit performances of “The Vagina Monologues” to raise awareness and funds for anti-violence groups within their own communities. Over the past ten years, thousands of benefit performances of the work, created by Eve Ensler, have raised over $50 million for local anti-violence groups and crisis shelters.   In 2008, over 3700 V-Day benefit events are taking place, produced by volunteer activists in the U.S. and around the world.

The V-Day movement is growing throughout the world with a presence in 120 countries from Europe to Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, and all of North America.  In Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, V-Day commits ongoing support to build movements and anti-violence networks. Working with local organizations, V-Day provided funding that helped open the first shelters for women in Egypt and Iraq, sponsored annual workshops and three national campaigns in Afghanistan, convened the "Confronting Violence" conference of South Asian women leaders, and donated satellite-phones to Afghan women to keep lines of communication open and action plans moving forward. Through the Karama progam, based out of Cairo, V-Day works in-depth to build networks ending violence against women and girls in Egypt, Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.