UW News

April 13, 2006

Educating girls for global health is topic of speech

The importance of educating girls and raising the status of women around the world will be the focus of a program next week featuring Kavita Ramdas, president and CEO of the San Francisco-based Global Fund for Women.

Ramdas will speak at a free public event on Tuesday, April 18, in the ballroom of the Husky Union Building on the Seattle campus. The event begins at 6:30 p.m., with Ramdas scheduled to speak on What’s Good for Women’s Bodies is Good for the Body Politic! at 7:30 p.m. UW Provost Phyllis Wise will give a welcome and David Fleming, director of global health strategies for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will introduce Ramdas.

Before and after the presentation, beginning at 6:30 p.m., there will be a Resource Fair, with representatives of more than 30 organizations, schools and community groups with interests in global health, women’s rights and women’s health.

Before joining the Global Fund for Women, Ramdas was a program officer at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in Chicago. She was born and raised in India, graduated from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts and earned a master’s degree in international development and public policy at Princeton University. She has received numerous awards for her work, including the Women of Substance Award in 2005 from the African Women’s Development Fund.

The event is sponsored by Puget Sound Partners for Global Health and several UW units. For more information on the program and parking, see the Web site at http://www.pspgh.org