WISER – 50 Years Ending Gender-based Violence
A Podcast Collaboration Between WISE and Northern Stage
Season 2
Our second season picks up where we left off, right now, diving deep into conversation to explore the ways that WISE is inspiring the Upper Valley community to create a more peaceful future. And it asks this key question: how can all of us be a part of the movement? In six episodes, we highlight how relationships can make real and lasting change.
A Podcast Collaboration Between WISE and Northern Stage
Season 1
In celebration of our 50th anniversary, we partnered with Northern Stage to create a podcast retrospective. The series features stories of the people who helped evolve WISE into the organization it is today and who continue to create positive change against gender-based violence into the present and future. In the Summer of 2021, 16 people were interviewed by Jess Chayes, Northern Stage’s former BOLD Associate Artistic Director and award-winning director and producer of new work. In this engaging and information podcast, personal stories from WISE’s past help connect us with the mission of creating a more peaceful future.
Episodes
Episode 6: In this final episode, Jess explores the impact of WISE’s prevention and education programming and how it inspires the next generation to create a more peaceful world and talks with WISE Executive Director Peggy O’Neil about her transformative years at WISE. Guests include Tori Nevel, Human Trafficking Specialist for New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, Helen Rooker, Northern Stage Production Manager, Kate Rohdenburg, WISE Program Director, Celine Guedj, WISE Youth Program Manager, high school students Anika and Elsa, as well as some voices from past episodes.
Episode 5: Peggy O’Neil, WISE Executive Director, opens the fifth episode as Jess interviews Angela Zhang, Jenny Williams, and Kate Harrison – all current board members. We learn what brings people to WISE, what it is like to support survivors on the crisis line, and how WISE touches every one of us.
Episode 4: In episode 4, Jess talks with Kate Rohdenburg, WISE Program director, Pat Glowa, WISE Board member, and Karen Tronsgard-Scott, Executive Director of Vermont Network Against Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. They reflect on the evolving ways of supporting survivors, intersections of WISE’s work with other Upper Valley institutions, justice and accountability, and their hopes for the future.
Episode 3: In episode 3, we meet Abby Tassel, Director of Multidisciplinary Interview and Training Center(MITC)and Lizann Peyton, WISE Board in the 1990’s and longtime consultant. In the ’90s, WISE begins to shift to a more professional organization and to build its prevention and education program.
Episode 2: In the second episode, Jess interviews Shirley Barrett Rivard who worked at WISE for over three decades. Shirley shares what it was like in the early days when WISE shifted its focus to supporting survivors of gender-based violence.
Episode 1: In the first episode, our host Jess Chayes sets the stage by introducing WISE, Northern Stage, and the Upper Valley. We meet Martha Popp and Alix Olson who share stories about WISE’s beginning as a grassroots resource center for women in the 1970s.
