White House Correspondents Insider

Behind the scenes of one of the most powerful clubs in America.

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.”

More from the 2012 WHC Garden Brunch: Pics, Press & Perez

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Here are more fabulous pics of the 2012 Garden Brunch guests and events.  It was such a magical day and the outpouring of support for CURE Epilepsy and The White Ribbon Alliance has been fantastic!

In addition, the press coverage has gone bi-coastal, with stories from Perez Hilton, The Hollywood Reporter, E! Online, Politico, The Huffington Post, The Hill and The Washington Post!

VIDEO: 19th Annual WHC Garden Brunch

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The WHC Garden Brunch celebrates it’s 19th year and honored Susan Axelrod and Steve & Jean Case.  Watch Elle Macpherson, Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Governor Haley Barbour, Kerry Washington, Danny Strong, Rosario Dawson, Hilary Rosen, Willie Geist, Alex Castellanos, Brad Keywell, Meghan McCain, Ed Henry, Danielle Panabaker, and David Axelrod talk about CURE Epilepsy and The White Ribbon Alliance.

WH Correspondents' Garden Brunch Honors 2 Great Causes

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The call went out from the co-hosts of the White House Correspondents’ Garden Brunch for guests to contribute to 2 great causes – the White Ribbon Alliance and CURE Epilepsy.   And guests, including a top network news anchor, media executives and business leaders responded with great generosity.

The annual Garden Brunch is also honoring Steve and Jean Case for their innovation and philanthropy and Susan Axelrod for her tireless work to find a cure for epilepsy.

You can watch the program from the Garden Brunch tonight on C-SPAN prior to the live broadcast of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

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:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

White House Corespondents Brunch: CURE and White Ribbon Alliance Summer Hits

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The 2011 WHC Garden Brunch featured two great organizations, CURE Epilepsy and the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood. Our honorary co-chairs Susan Axelrod and Wendi Murdoch led the push for advocacy and results.

2011 White House Correspondents’ Garden Brunch from whcinsider on Vimeo.

Thanks to your generous donations, CURE Epilepsy is having a record-breaking year in raising funds to find a cure. Your dollars are making a difference. Recently, a CURE-Funded Project had a major breakthrough. UC Irvine and French researchers identified a central switch responsible for the transformation of healthy brain cells into epileptic ones, opening the way to both treat and prevent temporal lobe epilepsy. Epilepsy affects 1 to 2 percent of the world’s population, and TLE is the most common form of the disorder in adults. Among adult neurologic conditions, only migraine headaches are more prevalent. TLE is resistant to treatment in 30 percent of cases.

“We’re quite excited about this discovery,” UCI neurologist and neuroscientist Dr. Tallie Z. Baram said. “Understanding how previous brain infections, seizures or injuries can interact with the cellular machinery to cause epilepsy is a crucial step toward designing drugs to prevent the process. We don’t want to just treat people with epilepsy. We hope to develop medicines that will prevent epilepsy from occurring – and influence the lives of millions of people around the globe.”

The White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood is using the month of July to encourage leaders to recognize the importance of health workers. There is a shortage of more than 3.5 million health workers across the globe and millions of existing health workers lack the support, equipment, and training they need to provide quality care. These nurses, doctors, midwives and community health workers are vital for progress on global health and development and for ensuring the millennium development goals are met.

In September, decision-makers will convene at the United Nations General Assembly to review progress on the Millennium Development Goals. It will be an opportunity for governments to announce substantial and specific commitments to support and invest in health workers. By sharing your voice on these issues, together change can be made.

Here is our photo gallery including David and Susan Axelrod, Rupert and Wendi Murdoch, Sarah and Todd Palin, Matthew Morrison, Jeremy Piven, Bill and Bernie Daley, Tina Tchen, Eric Podwall, Chelsea Handler, T. Boone Pickens and many other notables.

We are proud to support the work of CURE Epilepsy and the White Ribbon Alliance, and encourage you to do the same by clicking on the links below.

Global Women Advocates Gather in DC

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Women gathered around the world today for the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day. At the State Department, First Lady Michelle Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton presented the “Women of Courage Awards” and announced a partnership with 10,000 Women and the successful Goldman Sachs Foundation program that goes into the poorest countries and teaches women business skills.

Monday evening some of the nation’s best women’s advocates were brought together by the ONE campaign, the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood, CARE, and the US Advocacy Advisory team Mothers Day Every Day at the home of former ONE chief, David Lane. Dr. Helene Gayle, Sheila Nix, Susan McCue and Theresa Shaver urged the crowd to redouble their efforts on behalf of women. Dana Perino, former Bush White House press secretary led a bipartisan call to action with the help of Barbara Bush and sister Jenna Bush Hager.

Barbara Bush’s Global Health Corp is in the process of selecting their third round of fellows. David Lane, who left the ONE campaign to work with Bill Daley at the White House, caught up with old friends as he accepted their well wishes. First Lady Michelle Obama’s chief of Staff Tina Tchen, and Jen Klein from the State Department’s women’s section, greeted colleagues and friends including Stephanie Psaki (sister of WH deputy communications director Jen Psaki), Jodee Winterhoff, Teri Whitcraft, and Anita McBride – fresh off her First Ladies Conference. David Lane was cheered when he walked into his own home, the location of some of the great advocacy work for women.

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.

Celebrating All Moms

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Nicholas Kristof, New York Times columnist and co-author of “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide,” used his latest post to remind us all that Mother’s Day is more than just flowers and breakfast in bed.

The column names organizations that are helping to make motherhood safer including White Ribbon Alliance and CARE, part of the coalition that makes up Mothers Day Every Day.

The 2010 WHC Garden Brunch helped raised awareness for maternal mortality and the role mothers play in not only building families but in fostering communities worldwide.

Here is a video with some of the motherly advice shared by a few guests at the brunch.

Happy Mothers Day Every Day from whcinsider on Vimeo.