Latin pop star Shakira and Czech supermodel Karolina Kurkova were in news recently for receiving awards for their humanitarian work and then watched a fashion show featuring clothes from nine developing countries partly made by women trying to escape poverty.More than 400 fans and fashion Experts joined guests for the 2 events and a panel on Poverty, Women and Human Rights. It focused on the success of small micro-credit loans which hundreds of millions of women have used to start businesses and the need to help the 1 billion people who still live on $1 a day or less.
The nonprofit organization Women Together, which is currently concentrating on providing small loans so that low income women can produce textiles, sponsored the awards and the fashion show.
It honored 10 women and 2 organizations. Kurkova was honored for working for welfare of children through organizations such as The Beautiful Life Fund and Free Arts. She opened fashion show saying the designers were introducing fabrics from traditional weavers to Western world of high fashion.
The audience, which included Nane Annan, wife of Secretary-General Kofi Annan, applauded loudly for the high-fashion clothes from Colombia, Panama, India, Uruguay, Bangladesh, Mexico, Morocco, Peru and Brazil.
In addition, many others winners showed up to accept their awards. These included Ela Bhatt, founder of the SEWA Cooperative Bank in India which has provided micro-credit loans to 800,000 women; former Spanish Red Cross president Cristina Macaya; Brazilian writer Nelida Pinon; and Consuelo Ciscar who has promoted cultural and arts programs in Valencia, Spain.
There was disappointment in the crowd that several famous winners sent representatives to collect their awards including actress Angelina Jolie, Queen Rania of Jordan, US Senator Hillary Clinton, and Kerry Kennedy who founded a human rights center named after her late father, Robert F Kennedy.
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