If you missed the conversation between Eve and Isabel at Dominican College back in February, here is the video of this entertaining discussion on love, women, patriarchy, The Vagina Monologues and I Am An Emotional Creature.

This past weekend we lost a visionary, a fighter for women’s rights, and a “mama” to so many women and girl survivors of sexual violence in Congo. On March 18th, co-founder and Program Director of HEAL Africa Lyn Lusi passed away from terminal cancer. Lyn dedicated her life to the women and girls of Congo. According to HEAL Africa’s website, she first arrived in 1971 and worked in school and hospital administration in northeastern Congo (Nyankunde) for 19 years. In 2000 Lyn and her husband Dr. Kasereka (“Jo”) Lusi, founded HEAL Africa, a Congolese-led organization in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, working to eradicate poor health, poverty and the oppression of women. HEAL Africa has performed more than 1,500 post-rape fistula repair surgeries, provided primary care and counseling to more than 40,000 women, established 31 Safe Houses, trained 90,000 community activists in HIV/AIDS prevention and care, and funded more than 1,500 micro grants for families. 

V-Day has worked closely with Lyn and HEAL Africa since 2007, and though our hearts are heavy, Lyn will continue to inspire us daily. 

Eve wrote this tribute to Lyn upon hearing the sad news of her passing – 

Lyn Lusi died last night. She was the founding director of Heal Africa in Goma. She healed thousands of lives, saved and lifted thousands of others. She was safety. She was home. She was possibility. I want to write about her heart. I want to write about her devotion to the women and the girls and healthcare and education and stopping AIDS. I want to write about her consistency and tenacity, about her kindness and her roses. She planted gardens. There are blossoms all over the DRC. I want to write about dancing with Lyn in Goma and sitting with her at fancy fundraisers in London and cheering with her just this January for the women graduates from Heal Africa at City of Joy in Bukavu. I want to talk about her being a teacher of service and a mentor of listening and a mother of compassion. Lyn was what care looks like and devotion and finding a way through and absorbing pain and turning it to magic and power.  I want to write about Lyn’s love for Congo and all the ways she manifested that love. She literally gave her being and body. No one will ever replace her. They couldn’t. What we can do in her name, in her legacy is open our hearts further, listen deeper, serve more gently and fight more fiercely for what she loved, the women, the Congo. We can devote ourselves in her name to the time, may it be soon, when the Congolese rise to take their country, their minerals, their rights, their bodies, their future born from a soil that her love made rich. I loved Lyn. She was my friend and my sister. I will miss her deeply. 

~ Eve

Join the host of V-Day Petaluma 2012, GUIDED TO SAFETY, as we cosponsor the documentary MISS REPRESENTATION with MENTOR ME PETALUMA!

Premiering at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and airing on OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network) in October 2011, the film Miss Representation exposes how American youth are being sold the concept that women and girls’ value lies in their youth, beauty and sexuality. It’s time to break that cycle of mistruths.

In a society where media is the most persuasive force shaping cultural norms, the collective message that our young women and men overwhelmingly receive is that a woman’s value and power lie in her youth, beauty, and sexuality, and not in her capacity as a leader. While women have made great strides in leadership over the past few decades, the United States is still 90th in the world for women in national legislatures, women hold only 3% of clout positions in mainstream media, and 65% of women and girls have disordered eating behaviors.

Stories from teenage girls and provocative interviews with politicians, journalists, entertainers, activists and academics, build momentum as Miss Representation accumulates startling facts and statistics that will leave the audience armed with a new perspective.

TICKETS: advance tickets may be purchased online, www.cinemawest.com/pta.html, or at their kiosk; tickets may also be purchased at the box office event night. LIMITED SEATING – first come, first served.

Boulevard Cinemas
Tuesday, March 13
7:00pm
Ages 12+
First come, First served
$10 – ages 21+
$5 – under 21

http://v-daypetaluma.org/events-schedule/miss-representation/

By Frances Robinson

Only in the European Parliament could something as uncontroversial as not hitting women become a source of drama. As part of V-Day, a global campaign to end violence against women and girls, a group of MEPs have invited playwright Eve Enslerto their performance of her celebrated play “The Vagina Monologues” on March 6.

“It’s a fantastic play, it’s very inspiring and we wanted to bring that energy into the parliament,” Franziska Brantner of the German Green party, one of nine female MEPs from across the political spectrum who will star in the play, told Real Time Brussels. “Women shouldn’t be ashamed of talking about their sexuality, either in terms of pleasure, or in terms of being a victim.”

The series of monologues, first performed in New York in 1996, is based on a series of interviews with women about the most intimate part of their body. Now the MEPs, including France’s Mariel Gallo, Belgium’s Isabelle Durant and Portugal’s Ana Gomes will follow in the footsteps of Kate Winslet, Whoopi Goldberg and Jerry Hall in performing the play on stage.

However, not all of their colleagues are happy about the situation. “This sort of thing does not belong in the European Parliament… The ladies should move their performance to a theater,” MEP Werner Langen, from Angela Merkel’s CDU party, told German tabloid Bild-Zeitung (presumably he also objects to the topless photos the newspaper carries on its front page every day). “I call on Parliament President Martin Schulz to withdraw his approval for this event.”

In any case, the performance is due to take place in the Parliament’s Espace Yehudi Menuhin, which hosts events as diverse as Holocaust Remembrance Day, talks on oil and gas exploration in the Arctic, and performances of early music and dance ensembles. It’s hard to see how performing an award-winning play, albeit an attention-grabbing one, is at odds with the diverse other uses for the room. If the idea of a theatre inside a parliament is confusing, just let it go — the European Parliament also boasts several bars, a gym, a hairdresser and a meditation room.

In a further twist, Swedish MEP Cecilia Wikström, another performer, won the respect of Brussels gossip website Berlaymonster by employing that stealth feminist weapon, the limerick poem, to put UKIP MEP Gerard Batten back in his place.

It’s a challenge when those with vaginas, No longer put up with – in silence, This kind of old tripe, From him and his type, But speak up loud and clear against violence

The MEPs have devoted the event not just to V-Day, but also have a set of political demands including ensuring EU funding continues for programs to end violence against women, and ensuring the pan-European ‘victims package’ contains specific measures for victims of domestic violence.

All tickets for the event have been reserved and Ms. Ensler is scheduled to give closing remarks; now all the performers have to do is get ready to deliver lines such as “What would your vagina wear, if it got dressed?” instead of their usual “Voting begins now on the amendments.”

“We’ve been rehearsing, everyone got to read the part they wanted,” Ms. Brantner, speaking from Berlin, says of the project. “We’re not professional actors, but we are all used to being on stage, none of us is afraid of speaking in public.”

Hope you weren’t planning to purchase a ticket at the door for tonight or for our Saturday evening shows as WE ARE TOTALLY SOLD OUT!

However, V-Season isn’t totally over in Petaluma!  Stay tuned for V-DAY CASA GRANDE HIGH SCHOOL coming up in April! http://v-daypetaluma.org/events-schedule/v-day-casa-grande-high-school-2012/

THANK YOU for supporting V-Day Petaluma 2012!
({V}) LOVE TO ALL!

Hope you weren’t planning to purchase a ticket at the door for tonight’s show as WE ARE SOLD OUT!

However, there are still a few tickets available for SATURDAY’s show at Pelican Art Gallery and Viva Cocolat.

Join us for V-Day Petaluma’s final shows for the 2012 V-Season!