The V-Day College and Community Campaigns strive to empower women and men to find their collective voices and demand an end to the epidemic levels of violence and abuse in their communities around the world.
Through the Community and College Campaigns, V-Day’s dedicated base of activists, located in the United States and over 120 countries throughout the world, are given the tools and resources to inspire their colleges and communities to raise awareness and funds about the issue of violence against women and girls and to become active participants in ending it. For ten years, V-Day’s model of ‘empowerment philanthropy’ has been a catalyst for activists, college students, and anti-violence organizations to transform their communities and empower young women and men to be the leaders, shapers and messengers of the future.
At the heart of V-Day is a base of grassroots women, men and organizations that have used art and activism to change the dynamic of their homes, their communities and the world at large. What began in 1998 as a catharsis for women to recover from personal violence, through the benefit performances of The Vagina Monologues has evolved into a worldwide collective of passionate activists who have marched in Juarez, who have begun to end Female Genital Mutilation, who have mentored young women, who have kept shelters open, who have changed laws, who have run for office, who have begun long awaited dialogues, who believe that violence against women and girls can end.
Every year, between February 14 (Valentine’s Day) and March 8 (International Women’s Day), thousands of communities and colleges stage V-Day events as part of the College and Community Campaigns that include benefit productions of The Vagina Monologues and locally generated fundraisers and events. V-Season 2008 season, V-Day’s 10th Anniversary, saw over 4000 benefits take place in over 45 countries, in more than a dozen languages, educating millions of people about the issue of violence against women and girls, In addition, V-Day celebrated it’s 10th anniversary - V TO THE TENTH - in New Orleans at the Louisiana Superdome and Arena where over 30,000 people attended two days of revolutionary speakers, poets and performances including an all star benefit of “The Vagina Monologues” The events spotlighted the struggles and spirit of the women of New Orleans and the Gulf South.
Over the last 10 years more than $40 million has been raised via the Campaigns and donated to organizations within their communities that are working to stop violence against women and girls.
V-Day’s Community and College Campaign organizers are powerful collaborators - from organizations working towards ending violence against women and girls to amateur actors, from social activists to prominent business people and from young college graduates to college professors and faculty, they mobilize and unite their entire community around their events to raise awareness and funds to stop violence against women and girls. The money raised stays in the community itself and funds are distributed to a local group (i.e. a shelter, a rape crisis center) working to end violence against women.
V-Day provides training (through Vagina Warrior Workshops) for campaign organizers and provides program content, support and direction to help each local event be successful – these are predominantly held in the US but one has taken place in Europe, in Brussels Belguim in 2005. The Community and College Campaign Directors are available to answer each organizer’s questions, help them negotiate controversial issues (such as a campus newspaper refusing to print the word “vagina”), and helps each organizer grow in her ability and leadership to manage a complex event. In addition, V-Day connects all the organizers together through the V-Spot – an on-line chat forum where organizers can ask questions, share stories and celebrate their achievements.
With each V-Day Community or College campaign, the emphasis is on enabling women on the ground to address issues they have defined in their own communities with solutions they have produced. Through the celebration and empowerment of women V-Day Community and College Campaign events encourage, inspire and motivate women, girls and men everywhere to stop gender based violence.
