While we celebrate girls every day at SheKnows, the official International Day of the Girl is on Friday, and this year, dozens of celebrities are making sure it counts. Stars, artists, and influencers like Kacey Musgraves, Iman, Sia, and Sophia Bush partnered with Care Bears and CARE, a humanitarian organization fighting poverty and gender equality, to raise money for charity and celebrate women and girls around the globe.
Each celebrity hand-painted a resin Care Bear using themes like equality, climate justice, feminism, and diversity. Currently, the bears are for sale on eBay, and the proceeds will go to CARE so the organization can continue providing clean water, educational opportunities, and other resources to families worldwide.
“This International Day of the Girl, I’m proud to team up with CARE and Care Bears to celebrate women and shine a light on all that we can achieve when we raise our voices and demand change,” Bush said in a press release. “I created Justice Bear — well because RBG is my hero! — and to remind the world that while we’ve come a long way, our fight for civil rights is far from over. With women and girls leading the charge, I believe a world in which everyone is equal under the law is achievable.”
Some of the other bears include Youth Empowerment Bear by Sia; Diversity Bear by Iman; Clean Water Bear by Hilary Duff; Global Feminist Bear by Paris Jackson; and Earth Magic Bear by Kacey Musgraves.
International Day of the Girl was founded by the United Nations in 2012 to empower girls, highlight inequality and poverty, and promote human rights activism. This year, the theme is “GirlForce: Unscripted and Unstoppable,” which celebrates the women behind the decades-old Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and all of those who continue to push its ground-breaking human rights policy agenda today. Still, the UN, CARE, and Care Bears recognize that there’s still a lot of work to be done to ensure women and girls have access to reproductive health services, jobs, and safe spaces free of domestic and sexual violence.
With each specialty Care Bear purchase, CARE President and CEO Michelle Nunn says the organization will provide women and girls with “the right tools, like access to clean water, education, and economic opportunities,” so they can thrive.
“Our work at CARE is rooted in the understanding that women and girls are the key to lifting families and communities out of poverty, which is why International Day of the Girl is such an important moment,” Nunn said in a press release. “If we’re going to help solve the biggest challenges we face as a global community, we’re going to the power of the next generation of changemakers — powerful girls from around the world.”
Bidding on a Care Bear isn’t the only way you can help this International Day of the Girl, though. You can also donate to organizations that support women and girls, contact your elected officials to vote on meaningful policies (everything from reproductive rights legislation to climate change initiatives), donate books featuring women and girls to local libraries and charities, fight for equal pay in your office, and call out injustice when you see it.
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