The violence prevention community has selected three winners in the "No Private Matter! Ending Abuse in Intimate and Family Relations" collaborative competition, sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), in partnership with Changemakers. A panel of expert judges chose 15 finalists from more than 240 competition entries from 46 countries to identify the most innovative strategies to stop domestic violence. Online voters then chose the top three, who each will receive a $5,000 Changemakers award: Men Can Stop Rape in Washington, DC; Kenyan Men for Gender Equality Now; and Action India's Mahila Panchayat Network. More information on the competition is available at www.changemakers.net/en-us/competition/endabuse.

• Men Can Stop Rape, Men Can Stop Rape, Washington, DC, USA. Men Can Stop Rape engages young men in gender violence prevention. Since its inception in 1997, the program has reached hundreds of thousands of youth and trained thousands of professionals. Men Can Stop Rape takes a multi-faceted approach to developing young men as leaders in preventing partner abuse and sexual assault with models that honor the process of change. High school-aged men are given a safe, consistent space to build skills for identity development, gender violence prevention, and healthy relationship conduct. Young men translate curriculum lessons into service-learning activities, public action campaigns, and peer education opportunities with female co-facilitators.
• Action India, Women, Law, and Social Change: Action India's Mahila Panchayat Network, New Delhi, India. For more than 30 years, Action India has worked with women to build safe spaces and break the silences wrought by oppressive patriarchal systems. Action India's work focuses on helping Delhi's urban poor, who live in overcrowded squalor. The Women, Law and Social Change program provides direct support to women experiencing abuse and injustice. Action India has trained 64 paralegals to work on cases, counsel women in need, and provide referrals to the police, lawyers, or the formal judicial system when necessary.
• African Women's Development and Communication Network, Men for Gender Equality Now: Kenyan Men Betray Archaic Patriarchy, Nairobi, Kenya. Men for Gender Equality Now is a Kenyan network of men working to end gender-based violence and the spread of HIV/AIDS through prevention, victim services and creating awareness of men's role as agents of change. They coordinate sensitization seminars and workshops to empower the community, helping men to understand the roles they play in promoting violence and developing interventions to end violence.

"Each of the winning programs makes a real difference in the lives of those affected by abuse," RWJF Senior Program Officer Jeane Ann Grisso said. "The 'No Private Matter!' competition has been a tremendous success, bringing to the forefront a vibrant global network of social entrepreneurs that are making huge strides in eliminating the entrenched problem of domestic abuse. The competition has provided a uniquely valuable approach for assessing innovative violence prevention strategies that will help shape the Foundation's emerging work in this arena."

The competition's judges selected 15 finalists based on how innovative and sustainable their initiatives are, in addition to the social impact they generate. Judges were Family Violence Prevention Fund President Esta Soler, Ford Foundation Program Officer Jael Silliman, Waitt Institute for Violence Prevention Director Cindy Waitt, and RWJF's Grisso.

The other finalists in the competition are:

• Asociación Movimiento de Mujeres de Chinandega, School of Legal Training for Women, Nicaragua
• Center for the Study of Sport in Society—Northeastern University, Mentors in Violence Prevention Program: A Bystander Approach to Gender Violence Prevention, Boston, MA, USA
• Centre for Children & Families in the Justice System, Helping Children Thrive: Supporting the Mothering of Woman Abuse Survivors, London, ON, Canada
• Corporate Alliance to End Partner Violence, Engaging the Business Community in Intimate Partner Violence Prevention Through Workplace Initiatives, USA
• Eighteen And Under, V.I.P (Violence is Preventable) Project, Dindee, Scotland, UK
• Emory University, Emergency Department Computer Kiosk Intervention for Domestic Violence, Atlanta, GA, USA
• Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, Battered Immigrant Program: Prevention and Recovery, El Paso, TX, USA
• Mates Mens Support Group Busselton Inc., M.O.V.E. (Men Overcoming Violence for Equality), WA, Australia
• Montana Credit Unions for Community Development, Building Security through Assets and Financial Education, Helena, MO, USA
• Southwest Center For Law And Policy, Safety and Justice for Native American Survivors of Domestic Violence, Tucson, AZ, USA
• The Metropolitan Action Committee on Violence Against Women and Children, RePlay Positive Video Gaming Project, Toronto, ON, Canada
• Women & Girls Collective Action Network, Females United for Action, Chicago, IL, USA

All entries remain available in their entirety at www.changemakers.net to promote ongoing opportunities for these social entrepreneurs to connect with decision makers, investors and other health and social service providers.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that in 2004 there were more than 625,000 nonfatal intimate partner victimizations in the United States, and the vast majority of victims were female. On average, more than three women a day in the U.S. are killed by intimate partners.

RWJF and Changemakers are running a series of open source competitions to find innovative ideas and approaches from the U.S. and around the world that can inform solutions to U.S. health and health care problems. The second competition, continuing through July 18, seeks disruptive innovations in health and health care that provide solutions that consumers want. The third competition begins in August and looks to stimulate innovations in how computer and video gaming can improve health and health care.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on the pressing health and health care issues facing our country. As the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all Americans, the Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, meaningful and timely change. For more than 35 years the Foundation has brought experience, commitment, and a rigorous, balanced approach to the problems that affect the health and health care of those it serves. When it comes to helping Americans lead healthier lives and get the care they need, the Foundation expects to make a difference in your lifetime.

Changemakers is an initiative of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public. Changemakers focuses on the rapidly growing world of social innovation. It provides solutions and resources needed to help everyone become a changemaker and presents compelling stories that explore the fundamental principles of successful social innovation around the world. Changemakers is building the world's first global online "open source" community that competes to surface the best social solutions, and then collaborates to refine, enrich, and implement those solutions. Changemakers begins by providing an overarching intellectual framework for collaborative competitions that bring together individual social change initiatives into a more powerful whole. For details on the competition, visit www.changemakers.net.