VOICES: A SACRED SISTERSCAPE

VOICES: A SACRED SISTERSCAPE

The new audio play
is now streaming
across all audio platforms

LISTEN
TURNING PAIN INTO POWER

TURNING PAIN INTO POWER

Christine Schuler Deschryver’s
TED Talk on City of Joy

WATCH
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V-DAY IS A GLOBAL ACTIVIST MOVEMENT

TO END VIOLENCE AGAINST ALL WOMEN, GIRLS AND THE EARTH

Growing from a singular play to a vast global movement of survivors, artists and activists, V-Day works at the intersection of art and activism to shatter taboos, create space for women and the most marginalized, and initiate community led culture and system change. V-Day is a movement of everyday grassroots leaders demanding change for their communities.

New Campaign

VOICES

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. Our goal is to use art to embody and inspire solidarity-making in our collective imagination.

The new audio play, VOICES: a sacred sisterscape is now streaming across all audio platforms. Distributed by Blackstone Publishing, VOICES, is an audio experience of stories written by, narrated by and centering Black women across the diaspora.

For more information, please visit visforvoices.org and follow the journey at @visforvoices and @vdayorg.

We are the poems we have been waiting for. 
No movement will survive without our sistering.

Global Rising

ONE BILLION RISING

1 in 3 women across the Earth will be beaten or raped during her lifetime. That’s ONE BILLION WOMEN AND GIRLS. Every February, we rise – in countries across the Earth – 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.

One Billion Rising is the biggest mass action to end violence against women (cisgender, transgender, and those who hold fluid identities that are subject to gender-based violence) in human history. The campaign, which launched on Valentine’s Day 2012, began as a call to action based on the staggering statistic that 1 in 3 women on the Earth will be beaten or raped during her lifetime. With the world population at 7 billion, this adds up to more than ONE BILLION WOMEN AND GIRLS

TURNING PAIN TO POWER

CITY OF JOY

City of Joy is a transformational leadership community for women survivors of violence, located in Bukavu, in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a region plagued by an ongoing proxy war for the area’s vast mineral resources. Since opening in 2011, 2407 women have graduated from the CITY OF JOY, healed themselves, been nurtured, learned new skills, empowered themselves and joined into a network of love and revolution. These women have released massive trauma and horrific memories. They have danced, sung, learned their rights, performed plays, developed agricultural skills, come to love their bodies. They have become leaders in their communities. They are no longer stigmatized for being raped.

These women are forces of energy and determination, entrepreneurs of small businesses, initiators of collectives, restaurants owners, farmers with new land, educators and advocates on sexual violence, volunteers in a self-created recruiting network for new women at the center, journalists, immigration workers, tailors, students, herbalists, and more. 42 graduates are employed at V-World Farm, a large sustainable farm run by V-Day Congo.

City of Joy serves 90 survivors of gender violence aged 18 to 30 at a time.

Student Uprising

DISMANTLE PATRIARCHY

V-Day and A Call to Men have launched a competition calling on high school students in the United States and college students around the world to use their creative talents to Dismantle Patriarchy. Enter the Dismantle Patriarchy Contest to address how patriarchy impacts your life, your community, the world. How might we dismantle – take apart, break into pieces, deconstruct – patriarchy? What would it take? How would YOU do it? Bring your creative voice to this contest! Tell us, in whatever creative method reflects your project, and you just might win an award for your idea. Submissions can be in the form of essay, poetry, music, art, photography, film, etc.

Experiment. Think outside the box. Break down patriarchy and show us what a post-patriarchal world looks like. Articulate your vision using all the creative tools at your disposal.

Latest Posts

NEWS

  • TOGETHER, WE RISE 2026 RISINGS ARE HAPPENING NOW THROUGH EARTH DAY/22 APRIL As we write, activists in over 70 countries are rising, with 1000+ events already happening or scheduled. Risings will continue unfolding across the globe from now through International Women’s Month/Day (March/8 March) and Earth Month/Day (April/22 April). Using art and education, listening and solidarity, dialogue and reflection, ritual and storytelling, we rise to create new realities. We rise so people can return to their bodies, their sexualities, their creativity, and their full humanity. Imagine. Dream. Create. RISE for our Bodies, our Earth, our Future. We RISE to dismantle......

    20 February, 2026

  • A MESSAGE FROM V: RELEASE ALL THE FILES, PROTECT SURVIVORS, DEMAND JUSTICE & ACCOUNTABILITY Just out – V’s latest video on the Epstein survivors, and the call for accountability and justice: “…The rape of a child is the rape of their soul. It is the rape of their consciousness. It is the rape and contamination of their bodies. Children hold the future in their cells, in their hearts. I have no idea what accountability would look like at this point… What I do know is if we do not devote ourselves to it, design it, determine it, demand it, this......

    06 February, 2026

  • A Blessing, a Center of Rebirth and Love: City of Joy Celebrates 28th Graduation Ceremony Photo: Carlos Schuler On 19 December 2025, the City of Joy celebrated the graduation of its 28th class, bringing the total number of women whose pain has been transformed into power to 2,407. On this day, 85 women reintegrated into their communities — a powerful milestone in our ongoing work to support Congolese women survivors of sexual and gender-based violence. In her address, Christine Schuler Deschryver, co-founder and director of the City of Joy and V-Day Congo, spoke about the war in eastern DRC, underscoring......

    30 December, 2025

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