Stacey Abrams is continuing her work of advancing equal rights for the most vulnerable communities!
The author and activist has helped launch a new Women’s Initiative at Columbia University’s Institute of Global Politics (IGP) that focuses on economically empowering women and girls. “The Institute of Global Politics’ Women’s Initiative will produce high-quality, actionable research and policy proposals across four pillars: women’s economic opportunity; women’s health; women’s safety and security; and women’s leadership, democracy, and human rights,” Columbia University announced via press release. Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton and Columbia University Dean Keren Yarhi-Milo, developed the project to connect leading policymakers, political leaders, scholars, and advocates around issues of gender equality in the U.S. and worldwide. Abrams is an inaugural fellow.
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“When Secretary Clinton and the Dean decided to launch not only the fellowship, but the Women’s Initiative, there was no question in my mind that I wanted to be a part of it,” Abrams said in an interview with ESSENCE Magazine. “We know that when women and girls are lifted up, everyone rises with them. We are working together as fellows and within this Initiative to think about how women are not only uniquely and disproportionately impacted by our global challenges, they are almost entirely the solution to several of the challenges we face.”
Women’s Initiative is among the first of its kind to produce actionable policy recommendations at the state, federal, and international levels in conjunction with the academic power of a world-class university. Through the IGP, the initiative has the unparalleled ability to collaborate with Columbia’s renowned research centers and will ensure issues of gender policy are front and center on the global stage.
“We are supposed to find solutions, leveraging the scholarship of this institution, leveraging partnerships with other organizations, including ones that we’ve been a part of, and we are bringing our own lived experience,” Abrams said. “For me, this is one more opportunity to imagine a better outcome, and I’m excited and grateful to IGP for helping make this happen.”
Abrams has a long history of activism and being a voice for the marginalized. She has organized against voter suppression in Georgia and advocated for criminal justice reform. Through this new initiative, she hopes to find solutions to the pervasive problems of gender inequality—not only in the United States but worldwide.
“The urgency of this moment is not lost on me,” Abrams shared. “What is being done through the Women’s Initiative, what has been convened by IGP is an opportunity to bring new voices and bring an array of leaders together and not simply have us come together and bemoan what is happening or even articulate the problem. What is exciting about this and why I’m so eager to be a part of it is that our task is solution.”
Cover photo: Stacey Abrams Launches New Initiative at Columbia University To Economically Empower Women / Photo credit: New York Times