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The White Ribbon Alliance Triple Threat: Sarah Brown, Arianna Huffington and Donna Karan Reunite

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For the third year in a row, these three famous and successful women have led the annual breakfast to advocate for the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood.

Guests included Barbara Bush, Emily McKhann, Susan McCue, Jill Sheffield, Nicola Mendelsohn, Lucy Doughty, Celia Walden, Lucy Kneebone, Hilde Schwab, Jim Jones, Kathy O’Hearn, Lisa Benenson, Connie Milstein, Lynn de Rothschild, Sally Wnek, Sue Smalley, Jessica Stuart, and Kimi Culp.

A few special men who advocate for women and girls such as Jim Jones from the Exxon Mobil Foundation and Dr. Naveen Rao, the director of Merck for Mothers also attended.

Sarah Brown told the audience that while progress has been made, “We cannot take this for granted – we must keep up the fight.”

Arianna Huffington hosted a panel of experts who work on the ground, “In Nigeria the electricity goes out every hour – making hospital care problematic, ’’ said Toyin Saraki, founder of The Wellbeing Foundation. Aparajita Gogoi, of the White Ribbon Alliance in India told the crowd of 100, “We need to prevent needless childbirths deaths for sustainable communities….a woman is dying every 8 minutes in our country.”

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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Sarah Brown, Donna Karan, Arianna Huffington Empower Women

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The Women: Inspiration & Enterprise symposium on September 20th, hosted by the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood, is designed to be a “dynamic new annual conference for women” alongside the Clinton Global Initiative and UN General Assembly.

Hosted by Sarah Brown, Donna Karan and Arianna Huffington, the symposium will focus on empowering women in a new media standpoint while being able to network with like-minded and powerful members of the global community. Much like the educating experience that the May 2010 Women Deliver event profiling filmmaker Christy Turlington Burns‘ documentary No Woman No Cry.

NO WOMAN, NO CRY Panel Discussion from whcinsider on Vimeo.