BECOME A CHANGEMAKER
Make the pledge to receive information and awareness about women and girls monthly
Spread awareness on the 14th of every month to your network with information and experiences of girls that this website will function as a hub to provide. #loveourgirls
Reclaim Valentine’s Day every year by making girls and women around the world caught in injustices your Valentine. #reclaimvday
| To provoke real change through awareness |
To create a movement of changemakers |
To love our girls and women worldwide |
OUR MISSION
To provoke real change through awareness
To create a movement of changemakers
To love our girls and women worldwide
Take the LOG Pledge
%
of all new hiv infections among adolescents in africa are girls
%
of the population living in absolute poverty are women and girls
For a month, Viola Davis had been stuck. In the spring of 2020, in the late nights of lockdown, she set out to write her memoir. She had her routine: Get out of bed in the middle of the night, make herself a cup of tea, start writing in her movie room, fall asleep in one of its leather recliners, wake up, write some more, nod off again. But for weeks, she couldn’t figure out exactly where to begin. Should she start with her life as a celebrity, or the beauty contest she lost when she was a child, or the fact that people always wanted to hug her when they ran into her in public? Nothing worked.
The Gift of Her Art
This month we feature extraordinary women who are artists whose lives have indelibly impacted the work they have shared with the world. They are amazing iconic women we are excited to celebrate. Viola Davis, who is a shining light for our generation, released a memoir this month: Finding Me. Like everyone I know, I have long admired her searingly honest, courageous, powerful approach to her craft and the authenticity she brings to her self expression. Her generosity of spirit, feels like she is under a great commission to bring us all to our truer selves as she openly navigates her own journey. The more I hear about this memoir, the more I know the time with it will change me. That type of courageous outpouring is what connects all the women we feature this month, from ground breaking architect Sara Zewde, founder of Studio Zewde, our featured organization, to iconic Cara Walker and the startlingly luminous work of Kenyan sculpture Wangechi Mutu. This month we hope you allow yourself to be inspired, amazed and invigorated by women in various creative fields who have touched us with incredible contributions by daring to be themselves.
Kara Walker is among the most complex and prolific American artists of her generation. She has gained national and international recognition for her cut-paper silhouettes depicting historical narratives haunted by sexuality, violence, and subjugation. Walker has also used drawing, painting, text, shadow puppetry, film, and sculpture to expose the ongoing psychological injury caused by the tragic legacy of slavery. Her work leads viewers to a critical understanding of the past while also proposing an examination of contemporary racial and gender stereotypes.
OUR GENESIS
In anticipation of Valentine’s Day, I’d like to write a love letter to women. As an actress, I have the good fortune of a being able to play a complex, strong and flawed woman. As a writer, scripting narratives is my act of resistance, my way of bringing that unheard African female voice front and center and allowing it to manifest its astounding value. I have always had a passion for women and girls, a hope to see them function on the same playing field as men and have the same opportunities and appropriate protections. I want to be more than an actress and storyteller but an advocate for women, not only in underdeveloped countries but all over the world.
I was born on February 14th, 1978. My father named me Danai, in commemoration of my birth on the day of love and romance; Danai, in my parent’s native tongue, Shona, means to be in love or to love one another. I always embraced this day of teddy bears and excessive red roses as my day. But I have finally figured out a more purposeful meaning of Valentine’s day. This year, and every year to come, I am seeking to reclaim Valentine’s Day, to make it about loving our girls.
There are too many women and girls out there, caught in fundamental injustices with deep inner wounds. This Valentine’s Day, 62 million girls will still be denied the right to get an education, 14 million girls per year will continue to be married off as child brides without a choice, in Northern Nigeria, our girls will still not be brought back and more girls will continue to be abducted and sold in a sex slave market and gang raped in Syria. Girls and young women even in the wealthiest countries in the world will continue to struggle to step into their own authentic confidence. They still won’t have a seat at many tables of decision making and will remain so hyper-sexualized by the media they will turn into people pleasers and become beauty obsessive, neglecting the development of their true abilities, character and power. How is this still the world we inhabit?
Let’s bring about change with love. I want to reclaim Valentine’s Day as a day when we seek to validate our girls and women globally and lessen the gender gap inch by inch. It has to start with love – love being a verb, not a noun. Join me in making women and girls your Valentine, in making the world a better place for just one woman or girl on the globe. Every month, on the 14th, pledge with me to bring awareness to your network of the struggles, experiences or challenges of a girl or woman across the world.
Let’s do this. Let’s love our girls.
#reclaimvday #loveourgirls
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