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Is the America we have the America we want?
In November 2016, when
The Voices and Faces Project offered our two-day "Stories We Tell" testimonial writing workshop at the Illinois Holocaust Museum, our participants engaged in a spirited discussion about gender-based violence and its connections to other forms of oppression.
Our writers — spanning different races, ages, identities, political affiliations, and creeds — didn't agree on everything. But they did agree that those of us who care about sexual violence and exploitation can't stop there. Our pain connects us to the pain of others, including the millions of refugees — many of them women and children who have been victims of gender-based violence in conflict zones — seeking safe harbor in the United States of America.
The Voices and Faces Project workshop writer Rebecca Singer wrote "Dear Lady Liberty" — an open letter calling for a compassionate and just American response to refugees and immigrants — during that two-day workshop. We hope that you'll read Rebecca's piece and be reminded, as we in the workshop were, that it's not justice if it's not justice for all.
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| The Voices & Faces Project | Giving Peace a Chance |
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| Giving peace a chance: Our partnership with Young Women’s Leadership Charter School and Emerson Collective. |
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| The Voices and Faces Project workshop participants | photo: Patricia Evans |
Through a Peace Grant from Emerson Collective, The Voices and Faces Project has brought a youth-focused edition of our "The Stories We Tell" writing program to Chicago girls seeking to write and speak out about their lives, beliefs, and visions for their communities. According to Arne Duncan, former U.S. Secretary of Education and managing partner at Emerson Collective, "The Peace Grants are designed to help youth play a firsthand role in making a difference in their communities and encouraging innovation and leadership." Watch for a Stories on Stage performance of the girls' writing in Spring 2017 and special thanks to Marline Johnson and Janet Goldblatt for spearheading the project and our moving work sessions with the girls. |
| The Voices & Faces Project | "Ugly Truth" Campaign: |
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| World Without Exploitation and our "Ugly Truth" campaign in Time Magazine. |
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| Founding members of World Without Exploitation: Lauren Hersh, Sonia Ossorio, Taina Bien-Aime, Anne K. Ream, and Rachel Foster | photo: Lynn Savarese |
Eighteen months ago The Voices and Faces Project embarked on a unique journey, engaging in a series of conversations with our allies at Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, Sanctuary for Families, and National Organization for Women/Women's Justice NOW to help set the stage for the launch of World Without Exploitation, the national movement to end human trafficking and sexual exploitation. As part of that effort, our in-house creative team — partnering with Kinetic Media — created "The Ugly Truth," a public service campaign that ran in Washington, D.C. and San Francisco during the four month lead-up to the inauguration and the Women's March on Washington. Read the Time Magazine article about World Without Exploitation and our award-winning "Ugly Truth" campaign. |
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Featured in The American Prospect
Begin, Again: Election 2016 through the eyes of a Holocaust Survivor |
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| photo: Ronen Tivony/NurPhoto/Sipa via AP Images |
How does the anti-immigrant rhetoric we are increasingly hearing affect those who have witnessed history's worst? Writing in The American Prospect, The Voices and Faces Project founder Anne K. Ream profiles Vera Klement, one of America's more important living artists, a survivor of the Holocaust, and a former refugee who speaks with heart and intelligence about the implications of her story for all Americans.
Please read, think, and share.» |
| The Voices & Faces Project | Marching On |
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| Voices and Faces Project members take part in the Women's March on Washington (and in Chicago, San Diego, Los Angeles, and Boston). |
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| Make every city a Suffragette city: Marching in Chicago | photo: Javier Otero |
At The Voices and Faces Project we believe in peaceful, impassioned, results-oriented protest. And we know that never in the history of this country has our willingness to stand up and speak out meant more. In that spirit, The Voices and Faces Project team members turned out on January 21st to march in cities across the nation. A huge thanks to the voices and faces of this movement. You made history, and we know you'll make history again. |
| We can't do it without you: |
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| Support our “Stories We Tell” Scholarship Fund. |
Find out more about giving the gift of change by donating to our workshop scholarship fund. Every $500 raised provides a full two-day scholarship for a survivor waiting to take part in our program.
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info@voicesandfaces.org
