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Archives for September 2011

Sarah Brown: Leading the Maternal Health Campaign

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Sarah Brown and Ambassador Nancy Brinker

Sarah Brown, the Global Patron of the White Ribbon Alliance and the wife of former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, returned to New York to advocate for governments and non-governmental organizations to lead the final push to prevent maternal death, the United Nations Millennium Development Goal #5.

“One-thousand  women die every day in pregnancy and childbirth in avoidable, tragic circumstances,” said Sarah Brown, Global Patron of the White Ribbon Alliance. “We have seen some great progress in recent years to reduce these numbers, but our campaigning call continues.

Ms. Brown led the WRA’s ‘Wake Up Call for Women and Newborns of the World’ breakfast meeting, co-hosted by Arianna Huffington and Donna Karan, making a direct appeal for everyone to find their own way to help the maternal health campaign.

The packed event was part of the 2nd Annual Women: Inspiration & Enterprise (WIE) symposium and included the Second Lady Dr. Jill Biden, Ambassador Nancy Brinker from the Susan G. Koman Foundation, NBC’s Bonnie Hammer, CNN’s Hilary Rosen, Susan McCue from Message Global, actress Fran Drescher, author Rachel Simmons, Lucy Doughty and Theresa Shaver from the WRA.

Sarah Brown’s work with the White Ribbon Alliance began in 2008 and has since grown by “leaps and bounds” to a world-wide movement for improving the health care and livelihood of pregnant women.  On MSNBC’s Mitchell Reports, Brown appeared with Angela Nguku of the WRA – Kenya and continued to voice the call to provide mothers everywhere with the basic supplies to have a healthy birth and avoid preventable deaths.

‘The mother is at the heart of her family, and at the heart of her community, so when you’re loosing a mother, she looses her life but her newborn is very unlikely to survive, and her older surviving children are at such risk without their mother, and the community’s lost a core member of that world too.  When you’re losing a mother, you’re losing so much more than that single woman’s life,” said Brown.

Watch the full interview below:

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White House Leaders and the National Science Foundation Step Forward for Working Women

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Tina Tchen and Valerie Jarrett

Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to the President and  Tina Tchen, FLOTUS Chief of Staff and head of the White House Council on Women and Girls, penned an editorial in the Washington Post promoting the President’s jobs initiative and the importance of his new partnership with the National Science Foundation (NSF).  It detailed initiatives that will help bring a work-life balance to the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields that often see women drop out due to family responsibilities.  They say, “for many women who dream of becoming scientists and researchers, these kinds of simple, common-sense changes will make a world of difference. And our entire economy can benefit, because if more women have the chance to pursue STEM careers, it will lead to more innovation, entrepreneurship and growth.”

Read their entire editorial here.

White Ribbon Alliance Holds Power Breakfast for Safe Motherhood

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As world leaders gathered in New York for the opening of the United Nations, so did some of the world’s most powerful leaders in business, media, philanthropy fashion and politics, with one purpose: to empower and inspire women around the globe.

White Ribbon Alliance Global Patron Sarah Brown, president and editor-in-chief of the AOL Huffington Post Media Group Arianna Huffington, and famed fashion designer Donna Karan kicked off a day of powerful panel discussions at the WRA’s ‘Wake Up Call for Women and Newborns of the World’ breakfast. “1,000 women die every day in pregnancy and childbirth in avoidable, tragic circumstances. We have seen some great progress in recent years to reduce these numbers, but our campaigning call continues. The message from the WRA Wake Up Call is that the world’s powerful women care and will act for their sisters everywhere,” said Brown.

Panelists discussed maternal mortality as a key issue to solving some of the world’s most dire problems and that it is a preventable issue that requires widespread awareness and change in the way we think about women in society.

The packed event came on the last day of the 2nd Annual Women: Inspiration & Enterprise (WIE) symposium which featured such guests and speakers as Dr. Jill Biden, Ambassador Nancy Brinker, Fran Drescher, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Christy Turlington Burns, Barbara Bush, Anita McBride, Mark Dybul, Ray Chambers, Van Jones, Susan McCue, and Deborra Lee-Furness.

Check out Sarah Brown and Angela Nguku of the WRA, Kenya were featured on MSNBC’s Mitchell Reports talking about safe motherhood.

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