African first ladies take concerns to Hollywood

LOS ANGELES – A group of African first ladies met for two days in Los Angeles this week to forge US partnerships to try to improve health and education of women and girls in African communities afflicted by AIDS.

The wives of the presidents and prime ministers of Namibia, Kenya, Nigeria, Angola, Zambia, Cameroon and nine other nations teamed up with US health experts, non-profit groups and a clutch of celebrities to promote their work.
‘Nowhere before in the United States has such a large group of African first ladies come together to talk as one,’ Ted Alemayhu, founder of the Los Angeles-based US Doctors for Africa, told a news conference.
Hollywood actresses Diane Lane, Maria Bello, Robin Wright Penn and Camryn Manheim were among the celebrity women who attended an opening day luncheon.
Celebrity, TV star and singer Paris Hilton and supermodel Naomi Campbell were also there to lend their support to African causes.
Singer Natalie Cole, daughter of the late Nat King Cole, performed at a fund-raiser by oil company ExxonMobil, while Sharon Stone moderated a panel aimed at transforming words into action.
The meeting was aimed at raising awareness in Hollywood of various projects in Africa to supply clean water, fight malaria and combat AIDS.
The charitable group of 22 first ladies was formed in 2002 and is called African Synergy Against AIDS and Suffering. It was set up to highlight the vital role of women in education and healthcare in the world’s poorest continent.
Women in sub-Saharan Africa account for 57 per cent of HIV infections and young African women are three times more likely to become infected than men of comparable age in the region, according to a 2006 United Nations Development Program report.
‘As an African woman, this is really exciting and unprecedented,’ said ‘CSI: Miami’ actress Megalyn Echikunwoke, whose father is Nigerian. ‘For me this is really about finding out how we can support the first ladies.’
Oil giant Chevron, one of the meeting sponsors, announced a US$5 million contribution to help fight malaria in Angola as part of its outreach programs in Africa.
Sarah Brown, wife of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, delivered a keynote address on Tuesday, and former US first lady Laura Bush made a video address.
– Nampa-Reuters