Wheaton Men and Women Join Global V-Day Effort to Stop Violence

NORTON - Students of Wheaton College join the global movement to end violence against women and girls as part of the V-Day 2007 College Campaign.

Wheaton College will present a benefit production of Eve Ensler's award-winning play The Vagina Monologues early this March to raise local community awareness regarding issues of violence against women and girls around the world.

V-Day is a global movement to stop violence against women and girls that began in 1998 as an outgrowth of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues. After seeing and hearing firsthand the experiences of violence of women around the world, Ensler founded V-Day with a group of women in New York to demand an end to the violence. 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.

This year's V-Day campaign theme, "Reclaiming Peace," seeks to make a connection between the worldwide anti-violence work of thousands of V-Day activists and the collective desire for peace and an end to armed conflicts present across the globe.

The V-Day College Campaign in which Wheaton students are participating is an effort to mobilize college communities that strives to empower women to find their collective voices and demand an end to the epidemic levels of violence and abuse on college campuses around the world.

In charge of this year's production of The Vagina Monologues is Wheaton senior Production Design major Erin Meghan Donnelly as director and senior English major Maeve Kelley as producer.

Donnelly and Kelley have been instrumental in recruiting Wheaton students to participate in this year's campaign. Perhaps most surprising about the V-Day Campaign at Wheaton this year is the involvement of a handful of male students. Senior John Bracchitta of Shelton, Conn. cites the experiences of female friends as motivation for becoming involved in the campaign: "Because I know girls on campus who have experienced violence, it is important to me to either be at each show or working at the production somehow."