2008 Woodie Awards
Abby's House V-day benefit event to take place Tuesday
Fundraiser to benefit Abby's house and increase awareness of violence against women
Jeffrey Sawyer
Issue date: 1/11/08 Section: Headlines
Next Tuesday, Jan. 15 Abby's House will be sponsoring a fundraiser in an attempt to raise awareness of the violence against women and raise money for Abby's House which provides help to students who experience such violence. Abby's House is an on-campus resource that is available to students, staff, faculty and members of the surrounding community. It provides time and space for support or networking groups to meet in a nurturing, comfortable and confidential atmosphere. This will be the second of three V-Day 2008 events held on campus. V-day is a global movement to stop violence against women and girls.
The benefit will include readings from Eve Ensler's book: "A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and a Prayer: Writings to Stop Violence Against Women and Girls." Eleven different Western students, faculty and staff will be presenting readings from the book.
In the United States there are over 3 million reported incidents of abuse each year, in a vast majority of these incidents the victim is female. It is estimated that 20-35 percent of women in the United States will experience violence or abuse in their lifetime and according to the UN Study on the Status of Women in the year 2000, every 15 seconds in this country a woman was battered, usually by her intimate partner.
The fundraiser will be presented in a manner similar to the Vagina Monologues. The actors read the pieces from notes and not from memorization. Sarah McConnel, who is the Landers and Barnum Area Coordinator and is helping to put on the event. According to McConnel, this is done because when the pieces are memorized the actor becomes the character and thus the pieces become the story of the actor. Reading the pieces from notes instead of memorizing them allows for each story to stay personal to the storytellers and real people.
The readings will deal with the condition of women in the United States, and of women around the world. There will be pieces about women in Bosnia, Guatemala, Darfur and the Middle East. A few selected pieces will also highlight how sexual assault and rape are used as weapons of war.
To raise money there is a general admission of $5, or $3 for students. The audience will also have the opportunity to purchase the book that the cast will be reading from. T-shirts and candy will also be on sale.
The money collected during the benefit will help to provide funding to Abby's House.•
The benefit will include readings from Eve Ensler's book: "A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and a Prayer: Writings to Stop Violence Against Women and Girls." Eleven different Western students, faculty and staff will be presenting readings from the book.
In the United States there are over 3 million reported incidents of abuse each year, in a vast majority of these incidents the victim is female. It is estimated that 20-35 percent of women in the United States will experience violence or abuse in their lifetime and according to the UN Study on the Status of Women in the year 2000, every 15 seconds in this country a woman was battered, usually by her intimate partner.
The fundraiser will be presented in a manner similar to the Vagina Monologues. The actors read the pieces from notes and not from memorization. Sarah McConnel, who is the Landers and Barnum Area Coordinator and is helping to put on the event. According to McConnel, this is done because when the pieces are memorized the actor becomes the character and thus the pieces become the story of the actor. Reading the pieces from notes instead of memorizing them allows for each story to stay personal to the storytellers and real people.
The readings will deal with the condition of women in the United States, and of women around the world. There will be pieces about women in Bosnia, Guatemala, Darfur and the Middle East. A few selected pieces will also highlight how sexual assault and rape are used as weapons of war.
To raise money there is a general admission of $5, or $3 for students. The audience will also have the opportunity to purchase the book that the cast will be reading from. T-shirts and candy will also be on sale.
The money collected during the benefit will help to provide funding to Abby's House.•
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