Posted on: March 17, 2011 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

More than a thousand CARE advocates gathered last week at CARE’s Conference and International Women’s Day Celebration in Washington, D.C. to voice their support for critical funding and programs to improve the lives of marginalized women and girls around the globe. CARE’s annual conference brings together advocates from nearly every state, partner organizations, corporations and leaders in global health, media and politics to advocate for the vital need for foreign assistance funding, the importance of quality education for girls and the significance of economic opportunities for women. The event brings together such notables as Former First Lady Laura Bush, Melinda Gates, Helene Gayle, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah, Ambassador Melanne Verveer and Rep. Kay Granger, among others.

The celebration kicked off Tuesday night, on the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, with a special concert that featured Black River’s Sarah Darling along with India.Arie, Michael Franti and Crystal Bowersox.

“It was amazing to look around the room and see women and girls from all over the world celebrating together,” Darling commented. “I feel very fortunate to have grown up having all of the things I needed. Sometimes we take those things for granted. It’s always good to be able to see the bigger picture and realize that there are a lot of people around the world hurting. I was honored to be a part of such a wonderful event.”

Darling’s appearance was tied to her involvement with Join My Village, a new approach to fighting global poverty through empowerment of women and girls sponsored by CARE, General Mills and Merck.

Darling added, “It’s empowering to know that there are things that we can do to make a difference like supporting a social change effort I recently learned about — Join My Village. I encourage my fans to visit the Join My Village website at JoinMyVillage.com and simply click-to-commit which unlocks dollars from General Mills and Merck which go to providing life-changing economic and educational opportunities for women and girls of Malawi. It’s something easy we can all do to stand in solidarity with women around the world.”

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