Congratulations to Brooklyn Heights resident Jessica Greer Morris, who has been named one of Newsweek/The Daily Beast’s 150 Fearless Women, alongside Nobel Peace laureates, heads of state, Oprah, Lady Gaga, Angelina Jolie and Hillary Clinton.
Morris is Executive Director of Project Girl Performance Collective, an empowerment performance troupe for girls 12-21 designed to activate young women to foster change in their community. The initiative “creates a safe space for girls to write and perform their own work to overcome the violence, gender discrimination, poverty and lack of opportunity that is all too prevalent.”
PGPC uses theater as a means to become brave, confident, and socially conscious leaders and to overcome bullying, trafficking, child marriage and rape as a weapon of war. Project Girls have performed at The White House, have been on tour with the UN Foundation and travel to the poorest areas of New York City to ensure they are giving back to the communities where most of the girls come from.
In addition, Morris—the mother of identical twin boys—is a published playwright, founder of Playwrights Unite and a beneficiary of Love Creek/RCL, which produces her work in New York City. She wrote and starred in the New York Times-acclaimed one-woman show, Searching for a Mensch. She has produced work for the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women conference, the Samuel French One-Act Competition, NYC Fringe Festival and the Estrogenius Festival. Morris is also a principal at Man Up, a global, youth-led campaign to stop violence against women that she helped to launch in South Africa during the 2010 World Cup with 100 young activists from 25 countries.
