Change Starts with Women

Celebrating the power of women coming together to solve global problems, the Daily Beast and Newsweek will convene the second annual Women in the World Stories and Solutions summit in New York City tonight. For the second year in a row, the United Nations Foundation joins Vital Voices Global Partnership and Women for Women International as a partner for the three-day event.

On Saturday, UN Foundation CEO Kathy Calvin will introduce UN Women Executive Director Michelle Bachelet, who will be sharing her 100-day plan for the newly formed UN agency. Calvin celebrated the 100th Anniversary of International Women’s Day on Tuesday with Bachelet in Liberia, meeting women and girl leaders in the country to gain a better understanding of the challenges they face and how international organizations and individuals can help.

“If we want to ensure fewer people are living in poverty and going to bed hungry, we must first address the needs of the world’s women and girls,” said Calvin, who was named this week as one of Newsweek/Daily Beast’s “150 Women Who Shake the World.”“Change starts with women. I was reminded of this in Liberia, where women are leading the efforts to rebuild their war-torn country. That’s the strength of the Women in the World summit – women joining together to help other women and girls.”

The summit brings together some of the world’s leading luminaries —including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, philanthropist Melinda French Gates, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, actress Meryl Streep, and journalist Christiane Amanpour — to discuss the issues facing women and girls across the globe and solutions for pressing problems, including such topics as gender-based violence, human trafficking, the technology gap and improving health care access.
To join the conversation:

• Tweet using the hashtag #wiw11;
• Interact with fellow and future attendees on the Daily Beast’s Women in the World Facebook page
• Read about and comment on the “150 Women Who Shake the World.”
• Watch the Livestream of the entire event on thedailybeast.com, where there is a live blog, video highlights, and written recaps of the events.

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About the United Nations Foundation
The United Nations Foundation, a public charity, was created in 1998 with entrepreneur and philanthropist Ted Turner’s historic $1 billion gift to support UN causes and activities. We build and implement public/private partnerships to address the world’s most pressing problems, and work to broaden support for the UN through advocacy and public outreach. Through our campaigns and partnerships, we connect people, ideas, and resources to help the UN solve global problems. These campaigns focus on reducing child mortality, empowering women and girls, creating a new energy future, securing peace and human rights, and promoting technology innovation to improve health outcomes. These solutions are helping the UN advance the eight global targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). For more information, visit www.unfoundation.org.