HEALTHYGIRLSANDWOMEN=HEALTHYAFRICA
AMREF Honorees
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Abigail E. Disney | Eve Ensler | Charlayne Hunter-Gault | Johnson & Johnson |
Philanthropist, filmmaker and scholar. | American playwright, performer, feminist and activist. | American journalist and foreign correspondent. |
Abigail E. Disney
Abigail E. Disney is a philanthropist, filmmaker and scholar. She is well known for her documentaries focused on social themes.
Her first film, Pray the Devil Back to Hell, a documentary about the role that the women’s movement played in ending the civil war in Liberia, won the 2008 Tribeca Best Documentary award. Abigail is also the Founder and the President of the Daphne Foundation, a progressive, social change foundation that makes grants to grassroots, community-based organizations working with low-income communities in New York City. Since 1991, the Daphne Foundation has made millions of dollars in grants in areas ranging from women's rights to AIDS advocacy, children's health, labor conditions, religion, and environmentalism. The Foundation provides ongoing general operating support to its grantees, along with grants for technical assistance, infrastructure improvement and resource development.
Over the years Abigail has played a critical role in a number of different social and political organizations. She recently retired as Chair of The New York Women's Foundation, of which she was a board member for over 14 years. This organization has raised and dispersed millions of dollars for community organizations devoted to economic empowerment for women and girls in New York City. Abigail serves on the boards of the Roy Disney Family Foundation, the White House Project, the Global Fund for Women, and the Fund for the City of New York, as well as the advisory boards of a broad range of organizations working in the areas of poverty, women's issues, education and environment.
Abigail received her Bachelors degree from Yale University, her Masters degree from Stanford University, and her Doctorate from Columbia University. She and her husband, Pierre Hauser, live in New York with their four children. Her special series on Women, War & Peace, which provides the first definitive look at how war has changed for women since the end of the Cold War, will air later this spring on PBS.
Eve Ensler is an American playwright, performer, feminist and activist.
She is best known for her play The Vagina Monologues. Since its first staging in 1996, the play has been translated into more than 45 languages, performed in more than 120 countries and re-created as an HBO film.
The Vagina Monologues' success allowed Ensler to create V-Day, a movement to stop violence against women and girls, which has so far raised $75 million to prevent violence and protect abused women. Ensler has also drawn praise for The Good Body, a play that cuts to women's obsession with their appearance, and her film What I Want My Words to Do to You, that portrays a writing group she leads at a correctional facility for women. Today, she continues to find new projects and push the envelope. Her latest book is I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World, and a film project in conjunction with National Geographic about women caught in the Bosnian war.
In late 2010, V-Day and UNICEF, in partnership with Panzi Foundation opened the City Of Joy a special facility for the survivors of sexual violence in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo. Conceived, created and developed by the women on the ground, the City of Joy supports women survivors of sexual violence to heal and provide them with opportunities to develop their leadership through innovative programming. Through its groundbreaking model, the City of Joy provides up to 180 women a year with an opportunity to benefit from: group therapy; storytelling; dance; theater; self-defense; comprehensive sexuality education (covering HIV/AIDS, family planning); ecology and horticulture; and economic empowerment.
Charlayne Hunter-Gault
Charlayne Hunter-Gault is an award-winning journalist with more than 40 years in the industry, extending her work at various times to all media.
In 2005, she returned to NPR as a Special Correspondent after six years as CNN's Johannesburg bureau chief and correspondent. She joined CNN in April 1999 from National Public Radio, where she worked as the network's chief correspondent in Africa.
Hunter-Gault joined NPR in 1997 after 20 years with PBS, where she worked as a national correspondent for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. She began her journalism career as a reporter for The New Yorker; then worked as a local news anchor for WRC-TV in Washington, D.C.; and as the Harlem bureau chief for The New York Times.
Her numerous honors include two Emmy awards and two Peabody awards — one for her work on "Apartheid's People," a NewsHour series about South African life during apartheid and the other for general coverage of Africa in 1998.. Hunter-Gault also was the recipient of the 1986 Journalist of the Year Award from the National Association of Black Journalists, the 1990 Sidney Hillman Award, the American Women in Radio and Television award, the Good Housekeeping Broadcast Personality of the Year Award and a 2004 National Association of Black Journalists Award for her CNN series on Zimbabwe. She has also received awards from Amnesty International for her Human Rights reporting, especially her PBS Series, Rights and Wrongs, a Human Rights Television magazine. In August, 2005, she was inducted in the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame. She is a sought after public speaker, holds some three dozen honorary degrees, is on the board of The Carter Center, The Committee to Protect Journalists , The Emory University Advisory Board for the Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) , The Root and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She is married to banker Ronald T. Gault and has two adult children, Suesan and Chuma.
She is the Africa Bureau Chief for Essence Magazine and is the author of In My Place, a memoir of the civil rights movement, fashioned around her experiences as the first black woman to attend the University of Georgia. Her latest book is New News Out of Africa: Uncovering the African Renaissance, Oxford University Press.
Hunter-Gault lives in Johannesburg, South Africa and spends part of the year in her home on Martha’s Vineyard.
Philanthropy is a core part of Johnson and Johnson's corporate strategy which isfocused on advancing the health and well-being of people. In pursuit of this strategy, Johnson & Johnson collaborates with partners on health development programs globally. Over the years, AMREF has worked with Johnson & Johnson on several programs. One of our key collaborations includes the Management Development Institute (MDI), a joint program between Johnson & Johnson, the UCLA Anderson School of Management and AMREF.
All too often health professionals without any formal management education are expected to lead large HIV/AIDS programs. Through its one-week intensive courses, the MDI provides management training to help develop effective leadership of sub-Saharan organizations devoted to the care, treatment, and support of people living with HIV/AIDS. Since its inception, the MDI has been a catalyst for change and has trained more than 500 health professionals.
Building on the success of the in-class program, the partners launched in 2010 an e-learning version that enables world-class health management education to be delivered to the most remote corners of the continent. Initially, this e-learning program will be employed to enhance the health leadership and management skills of the 7,000 managers of Kenya’s National AIDS Control Council.
Recognizing that nurses – rather than doctors – are the main health providers in the developing world, Johnson & Johnson has made nurse training one of its core goals globally. AMREF is currently implementing a program to upgrade the skills of more than 20,000 nurses in Kenya to registered nurse level. Paying for the program is one of the many challenges that the nurses face. This past March 2011, Johnson & Johnson provided seed funding to AMREF, who is partnering with the micro-finance group Kenya Women’s Financial Trust, to implement a loan program for nurses studying in the e-learning program.
According to the World Health Organization, there are more than two million women in developing countries living with vesico-vaginal fistula, which is caused by prolonged complications during childbirth. Each year, between 50,000 to 100,000 new cases occur. AMREF is one of the key organizations providing fistula repair surgery in East Africa. We also train doctors working in rural hospitals to perform the surgeries to ensure that more women who need fistula repair receive it. Johnson & Johnson has provided funding to host two conferences focusing on training African surgeons on fistula repair.
Johnson & Johnson embraces research and science - bringing innovative ideas, products and services to advance the health and well-being of people. Johnson & Johnson’s 114,000 employees at more than 250 companies work with partners in health care to touch the lives of over a billion people every day, throughout the world.
Read more about the presenters at the luncheon
