Streep's Women
The two weeks I missed doing blogs during my mother's sickness were around the Academy
Awards and I was going to do a series on what charities the stars support. In
honor of my mother, the first star I’m going to feature is Meryl Streep. Streep
was one of her favorite actresses. She’s an amazing actress who’s won numerous
Academy Awards, Emmys, Screen Actors Guild awards and even a Cannes Film
Festival award.
She also acts as National Spokesperson for the National Women’s History Museum (NWHM). Last
Friday was International
Women’s Day. The Women’s Museum is still a dream that hasn’t come true yet
with legislation in Congress to be passed before it can become a reality.
But NWHM has already gotten a monument of Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and
Susan B. Anthony out of its 76‑year confinement in the Capitol Crypt to the
rotunda of the U.S. Capitol so that DC visitors can see this testament to the
contributors of the women’s suffrage movement. This year marked the 100th
anniversary of the 1913 Suffrage Parade and was celebrated by a similar parade
in Washington.
Streep voiced one of the nine stories of girls in Girl Rising, a film about the impact education can have on a girl’s
life. Girl Rising runs through today
in New York at Cinema Village, and in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Theatre.
I have written about Half the Sky Turning Oppression intoOpportunity for Women Worldwide, which
is a book about women’s rights and issues in the world. It explains the power
of education to help women.
I also wanted to mention that there is a new
Half the Sky game on Facebook that allows people to see what kinds of decisions
poor women have to make in impoverished countries, sometimes between food and
medical care for their families. You can also donate to women’s causes through
the game and even earn money for these causes just by playing. Additional mobile games are being distributed in India,
Kenya and Tanzania to reach millions of low-end mobile devices in the
developing world.
Streep has also supported charities for disadvantaged
youth, AIDS, hunger, cancer, and environmental protection to name a few. Yesterday,
her public service announcements encouraging people aged 50 and over to get
screened for colon cancer launched, in conjunction
with National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month in March.
Another popular charity that Streep supports is Stand Up toCancer (SU2C) whose September 7 television event this year raised $81 million
for cancer research. SU2C funds collaborative cancer research and was cofounded
by Katie Couric. Its 2012 television event was produced by Gwyneth Paltrow.
This famous woman has used her fame to support many kinds of
causes. I salute her today for doing so.
A great subject for posts Anne, and a great way to bring these forgotten women back into the ight of day.
ReplyDelete