Submitted by: Eleanor LeCain

As part of its ongoing efforts to support Afghan women, V-Day returned to Afghanistan March 8-11, 2003 to offer an Afghan Women's Leadership Program to over 30 women from different grassroots and community based organizations within Afghanistan.

V-Day Founder Eve Ensler and Executive Director Jerri Lynn Fields participated in the program, which was convened by V-Day's Special Representative Hibaaq Osman, in consultation with political advocacy training expert Eleanor LeCain and V-Day's Barbara Wein.

The three-day agenda in Kabul focused on building skills in political advocacy and identifying the key challenges for women through listening, supporting and finding ways to amplify the work that the women are already doing on the ground.

V-Day has a history of supporting Afghan women since 2000. In December 2001, V-Day participated in the "Afghan Women's Summit for Democracy" (in Brussels), as one of the main sponsors and donors. As a follow-up to the Brussels Summit, Ensler and Osman traveled to Afghanistan in March 2002 to participate in International Women's Day in Kabul, celebrated there for the first time in five years. While in Kabul, V-Day sponsored a series of roundtable talks on Afghanistan and Pakistan, gathering together more than 100 Afghan women, including the Brussels participants, to share status updates and feedback on their situation and to encourage strategic alliances among the women's groups.

While at the Brussels summit, the participants cited numerous times that lack of communication (there was and is no telephone infrastructure in Afghanistan) prevented them from effectively working together on a common agenda. To bridge this gap, V-Day provided and delivered at the Kabul talks over sixteen satellite telephones to women's groups, including the Afghan Women's Ministry, to build better communication and develop a network among the groups. (www.vday.org/aghanistan)

Inspired by Playwright Eve Ensler's play "The Vagina Monologues," V-Day is a global movement to stop violence against women and girls that promotes creative events to increase awareness, raise money, and revitalize the spirit of existing anti-violence organizations. V-Day stages large-scale benefits and promotes innovative gatherings and programs (The Afghan Women's Summit, The Stop Rape Contest, Indian Country Project, and more) to change social attitudes towards violence against women. In 2003, more than 1000 V-Day benefit events - produced by local volunteer activists - are scheduled around the world, educating millions of people about the reality of violence against women and girls and raising funds for local groups within their communities. In its first year of incorporation (2001), V-Day was named one of Worth Magazine's "100 Best Charities." In its first five years, the V-Day movement has raised over $14 million, with over $7 million raised in 2002 alone. (http://www.vday.org/)