Happy VDAY! Until The Violence Stops

Hello good friends and family, near and far :*)

I felt like it was high time I was a little more proactive about updating you all about what is going on in my life-- to give you a little glimpse-- Well, I am, somehow, in the midst of my very last semester at William Jewell College and in the working intensely on very exciting and stimulating senior project- I like to call it my "senior capstone catharsis" :*). I am directing The Vagina Monologues this year at Jewell and set up an entire month of special events, art and awareness for our entire college- focusing of sexual health and social justince concerning sexual and domestic violence and abuse, which we are in the very midst of as I speak! Check out this article our school newspapwer- they did a GREAT article about the show http://www.thehilltopmonitor.com/volume21/issue15/issue15.pdf The Vagina Monologues is part of an international movement to raise awareness about violence against women and girls- it gives a voice to overlooked experiences of women regarding sexuality, self-identity, abuse, justice and resilience. All the funds from the show go to a local organization and all our t-shirt sales are going to a Jewell student and her daughter who, as survivors of domestic violence, are in need of funds for court fees. There are over 20 women (and a few men!) I am directing and overseeing with the monologues and production teams- women that span our campus- women with different backgrounds and strong leadership- it is a great experience. We have been working closely with administration and our Student Senate to address the student need for sexual health education intiatives and contraceptive availability on our campus, have pulled together a moving art exhibit revealing different visions, memories, healing pains, abuses and reflections of of reality at a very personal level, we are creating a venue for women of Jewell to reveal the abuses and difficult experiences they have had through an event focused on awareness and action, we are rallying men from across campus- fraternities, sports teams, independents---to the connect to how they can play a role in this movement. It has been an incredible challenge, but so far rewarding- and proving to be the perfect project to tie my self-designed Women's and Gender Studies major and previous activism into one seamless, creative whole. Check out the international VDAY website- http://www.vday.org/main.html

The Vagina Monologues: WJC Schedule of Events

The Vagina Monologues is an international movement to stop violence against women and girls. All of the ticket sales go to Synergy Services, a local organization whose mission is on target with ours. This year we are also supporting a Jewell student, Anne Brown-Pollard and her daughter, Emeline, with funds from t-shirt sales. As survivors of domestic violence, this money will go towards court fees. Tickets ($5) and T-shirts ($10) will be sold from 10:30 to 2pm in the Yates-Gill Student Union during the weeks before the show.

February 6th, 6:00 pm, Yates 222 – “Do It Right” – Mindy Heutinck, professor of nursing, will be presenting sexual health; focus on contraceptives and sexually transmitted infections.
February 12-16- “The Faces of…change, love, pain, courage, freedom, hope”—Art Show, Curry Library
February 14th – V-DAY – We will be sending out Valentine’s Day cards/invitations to all students to attend the Vagina Monologues
February 19-23 – “Airing Out Our Dirty Laundry” – Throughout this week, we will be hanging old t-shirts with statistics on women’s human rights injustices locally, nationally, internationally in the Union.
February 20th, 6pm- Gano Chapel – “Until the Violence Stops – WJC Speaks” – An evening of awareness and action. Anne Brown-Pollard, survivor of domestic violence, speaks personally of her experiences and Synergy, the beneficiary of the show, will speak about prevention and awareness. WJC women will be telling their own stories, anonymously or in person, of rape, abuse, violence or injustice. This is our chance to air our own dirty laundry in order to stimulate change on our own campus.

- March 3rd , 7:30pm, The Vagina Monologues Performance
- March 4th , 2pm, The Vagina Monologues Performance
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TICKET INFO:
All tickets are $5. To reserve your ticket, send your check
(payable to William Jewell College) to:

The Vagina Monologues
c/o Betsy Bramon
500 College Hill Box 2082
Liberty, MO 64068

*Be sure to indicate which performance you plan on attending
**You ticket will be held at the box office until 30 minutes prior to the performance.

If I could sum it all up... adding together Amnesty, Jewell, Amsterdam

This past fall I was nominated to apply for USA Today's All-Academic Team. Though I did not win the award, the application process was incredibly valuable. It challenged me and enabled me to focus and reflect on the experiences that have shaped me the most throughout my college career. Last semester was a very difficult challenge for me both academically and personally. Through this application process, I humbly stumbled upon a number of personal realizations that helped me pull everything together.

I wanted to share my essay with you all because I feel proud of what it says and how it concisely portrays my passion, my experiences, and my vision. So this is my gift to you!

As my mind weaves through all I have committed myself to in the past four years, I am struck by a definite and unmistakable thread that links them all together. Each stems from a common passion and strength I have discovered within myself that pulls human rights and women’s human rights into the forefront.

Through human rights advocacy, I have been able to pour my passion into an academically rigorous self-designed major combining research and hands-on service opportunities with self-discovery. This has contributed to a highly interdisciplinary and personalized college experience rooted in raw reality. Through a combination of internships, one with the Amnesty International USA headquarters’ in New York City and the other with The Salvation Army’s International Task Force on Sexual Trafficking in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, I was able to experience how the dance of theory and reality supply an arresting case to take a stand for change.

Stepping into the headquarters of Amnesty International USA pushed me in directions that contrasted and complimented the activism I had done at the grass roots level. As one of only two select undergraduate interns, I joined the professional research team that forms the backbone of Amnesty. Together we composed in-depth reports that influence legislation and reform surrounding domestic violence against Native American women, public housing for domestic violence victims, police brutality against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons, detainee abuse issues regarding Private Military Contractors in Iraq, as well as sexual abuse in prisons. I also volunteered weekly with the homeless in New York City, learning of their personalized struggles with many elements of American society our research was working to clarify. Through this combination of work, I cultivated the aptitude and experience necessary to pursue other urgent international human rights issues. It was when I studied abroad in Amsterdam, The Netherlands that I coupled this new-found power with my passion for women’s human rights at an international scale.

Sex trafficking is a brutal and secretive form of modern slavery that embodies some of the most atrocious human rights violations against women. Though it invisibly infiltrates into every major city in the world, most ordinary people are unfamiliar with it. Through The Salvation Army’s International Task Force on Sexual Trafficking, I had the privilege of individually designing and orchestrating a research project exposing this underground network in Europe. It will be used to form crucial international policy which targets organized crime networks and government corruption while urging measurable enforcement of internationally recognized human rights standards. Because sex trafficking is often masked behind the perceived choice to work in prostitution, I interacted weekly with legal and illegal prostitutes in Amsterdam, building relationships with them and learning about their personal journeys through the industry.

These experiences build upon each other, one forming foundations of learning and questions for another. They cannot be separated. They are part of a vision with a present and a future that beg others to do what they can to create and sustain change. We must understand each other’s stories in order to decode injustice and prevent humanity from being stripped from the most vulnerable of people. With my experiences in human rights advocacy through research and field work, I can hope that I am motivating others to take a stand while forming new resources that will keep some of these stories from resurfacing with different names and faces.

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