Resist Festival raises €65,000 for Dutch minister's family planning fund

The Resist Festival held in Pakhuis de Zwijger in Amsterdam on Thursday raised over 65 thousand euros for Minister Lilianne Ploumen's family planning fund She Decides. The Dutch Development Minister established the fund after new American president Donald Trump decided to stop funding for family planning in developing countries.

When Trump signed the Global Gag Rule late in January, he scrapped 575 million euros in funding to developing countries for sex education, contraception and safe abortions. Ploumen decided to do something about it and established the She Decides fund. The world soon realized what she was doing and the citizen's initiative #Ploumen4women started on Twitter, AD reports.

Last week writer William Bosch teamed up with Pakhuis de Zwijger, publisher Lebowski and record label Top Notch to organize the Resist Festival as a fundraiser for #Ploumen4women to donate to the She Decides fund. In less than 10 days they managed to organize a full festival evening with a huge line-up of speakers and musicians. Red caps were passed around throughout the evening to collect money.

The speeches included a video message from director Steve McQueen from Los Angeles and a Footnote written by Arnon Grunberg. According to the newspaper, one of the finest speeches came from comedian Johan Fretz, who called fore "radical gentleness." There were also performances by singer-songwriter Rachel Luise, Diggy Dex and Linde Schone. 

After the show all the donations were added up and amounted to 65,231.68 euros. The entire amount will be donated to the She Decides fund.