Recognizing Outrageous Actors: 2009 Women of Vision Awards

This week the Ms. Foundation holds its 21st Annual Gloria Awards: A National Salute to Women of Vision where we will recognize three grassroots leaders and an individual and corporate donor who are each committing outrageous acts for simple justice. These women exemplify, in Gloria Steinem’s words, “women and girls on the ground who know best what they need, and are infinitely creative about how to achieve it.”

• Naina Khanna, Director of Policy and Community Organizing at Women Organized to Respond to Life-Threatening Disease (WORLD), supports, educates and mobilizes women living with and affected by HIV/AIDS to advocate for policy change that meets their unique and, often, unmet needs. Naina recently co-founded the U.S. Positive Women’s Network and is the youngest leadership team member of the Ms. Foundation’s National Women and AIDS Collective. Her work results in better prevention, treatment and care programs for women and their families across the U.S. [Read more.]
  
  
• Gina Womack, Director and Co-Founder of Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children (FFLIC), is an impassioned community organizer dedicated to creating a better life for all of Louisiana’s youth, especially those involved in or targeted by the juvenile justice system. With chapters across the state, FFLIC builds the leadership of parents and others to share testimony and advocate for the rights of youth and families, including an end to the “school-to-prison pipeline.” Under her leadership, FFLIC has helped reduce the number of juveniles in detention in the state from 2,000 to 541 between 2000 and 2007. [Read more.]
  
  
• Kirbie Platero is the recipient of the Marie C. Wilson Young Woman’s Leadership Award. Kirbie, member of and organizer at Young Women United, is a 19-year old activist, mother and artist working to secure reproductive justice for girls and women. She recently helped lead a successful campaign in New Mexico that brought young women of color to advocate before state officials for the implementation of comprehensive sexuality education in public schools. [Read more.]
  
  
• Bonnie Schaefer, Woman of Vision and Action Award recipient and former co-chair & co-CEO of Claire's Stores, Inc., is being honored for her strong commitment to issues affecting women and girls in the U.S. and around the world—from human trafficking to women's visibility in the media. Bonnie serves on the Host Committee for the Women's Division of the Weizmann Institute of Science, and she is a new member of Women Moving Millions, a partnership of visionary donors and the Women's Funding Network. [Read more.]
  
  
• MAC AIDS Fund and Executive Director Nancy Mahon, recipients of the Corporate Philanthropy Award, are being honored for the Fund's crucial support of women and HIV/AIDS advocacy. Their partnership with the Ms. Foundation has been critical to the success of the National Women and AIDS Collective, the first and only national policy coalition led by and for HIV positive women in the U.S., formed in 2005 by the Ms. Foundation's Women and AIDS Fund grantees. [Read more.]
  
  

More on the 21st Annual Gloria Awards: A National Salute to Women of Vision.