34 Million Friends of UNFPA was founded in 2002 by Jane Roberts, a teacher from California, and Lois Abraham, a lawyer from New Mexico, in response to the decision by the United States to withdraw $34 million from UNFPA family planning and reproductive health initiatives. The idea behind the campaign was simple: get 34 million Americans to donate one dollar each to bridge the funding gap and support UNFPA in its goals of promoting women’s education, health, empowerment, and equality. In nine years, the campaign has raised $4.2 million dollars, and Jane Roberts continues to travel, write, and speak to promote this grassroots movement.
Jane Roberts with Dr. Ana Langer
Jane Roberts joined the Women and Health Initiative on Thursday, October 6th to talk about "Women, Population and the Millennium Development Goals." Roberts opened her talk at HSPH with a moving quote from Hillary Clinton’s 1995 speech to the UN World Conference on Women. Throughout her hour-long talk, Roberts focused on the power of media, writing, and film to reach out to and engage with the public intellectually and emotionally. She referenced A Walk to Beautiful, a film about Ethiopian women who suffer from obstetric fistulas, as well as Empty Handed, a film about women’s search for contraceptives in Sub-Saharan Africa. Through a photo series, Roberts challenged listeners to really imagine what it would be like to die during childbirth. Finally, Roberts left us with the imperative to re-examine and remember the commitments we made through the 1994 Cairo Consensus and the setting of the Millennium Development Goals and challenged us to design creative ways to engage the public on issues of women’s health and empowerment.
For more information on Jane Roberts and the 34 Million Friends of UNFPA, check out these resources, and stay tuned for a screening of Empty Handed at HSPH this fall!
The Economist article on Gendercide: http://www.economist.com/node/15606229
Jane Roberts’ writings on gender-based violence: http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/reader-diaries/2010/03/30/gender-based-violence-expanded-definition-pessimistic-assessment
Jane Roberts’ book: “34 Million Friends: Of the Women of the World”
