A Worthy Cause on Valentine's Day

Rather than spend $4 on a Hallmark card and $25+ on flowers, why not donate $25 to house and feed a widow in Iraq for one week?

V-Day is a global movement to stop violence against women and girls, including rape, bettery, incest, female gential mutiliation and sexual slavery.

Here are a few other options:

Gifts of Wholeness and Womanhood in Africa
In 2002, V-Day, working with Vagina Warrior and anti-FGM activist Agnes Pareyio, opened the V-Day Safe House for Girls in Narok, Kenya. The House is a safe haven for young girls seeking refuge from Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and early childhood marriage. The girls live at the Safe House while they complete an alternative rite of passage which reflects traditional Maasai culture and teachings. The girls also develop life skills, preparing them to return to their villages and be accepted as women without the pain and life-long suffering of female genital mutilation..

Expanding educational opportunities for African girls is an important component of ending the practice of FGM. After a girl completes the alternative rite of passage, the V-Day Safe House for the Girls provides tuition and books to help her stay in school. Since it opened in 2002, the V-Day Safe House over 333 girls have undergone the Alternatative Rite of passage and are continuing their education.

$25 Provides food and supplies for one girl for one week at the V-Day Safe House
$100 Provides outreach and training workshops in villages in Kenya to educate local leaders about the need to end FGM and early marriage, and teach them to become agents of change in their communities
$500 Provides school tuition, uniform and books for one girl to continue her education for a year

Gifts of Support and Caring for our Sisters in Iraq and Afghanistan

The women of Iraq and Afghanistan suffer almost invisibly as a result of the War on Terror. The situation of women in both these countries is deteriorating rapidly. The many widows being produced as a result of the war have no resources and are not permitted to work. Girls continue to be harassed on their way to school. Working with our program partners, RAWA (the Revolutionary Association of Women in Afghanistan), Organization for Women’s Freedom in Iraq, and Organization for Promoting Afghan Women’s Capabilities, we are supporting the development of grassroots leadership, economic opportunity, education and protection of human rights.

$25 Provides shelter and food for a widow in Iraq for one week
$100 Provides books and teachers for a girls’ schools in a refugee camp in Pakistan for one year