Julia Roberts joins Chime for Change crowdfunding partner

CHIME FOR CHANGE Advisory Board member Julia Roberts has come on board as the newest curator on Catapult.org, the campaign’s crowdfunding partner, joining a host of notable individuals who support the work of CHIME FOR CHANGE and Catapult by bringing attention to the issues and projects they care about.

Roberts serves as the Global Ambassador of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, a UN Foundation-led initiative to create a market for clean cookstoves and fuels for the 3 billion people worldwide that are impacted by harmful cooking smoke every day, primarily women and children. 

In this capacity, Roberts has selected the following three projects for her Catapult page: creating an interactive Online Knowledge Hub to reach and engage both women and men globally to achieve sustained adoption and use of clean cookstoves and fuels; providing safe access to fuel efficient stoves to women in Darfur through the World Food Programme; and creating women’s installation teams in Tanzania to replace indoor cooking fires with specially designed stoves and chimneys through The Maasai Stoves & Solar Project.

“I like Chime for Change because I strongly believe that cooking shouldn’t kill,” said Julia Roberts. “One of my favorite pastimes is cooking a meal and enjoying it with my husband and children. But when I learned that the seemingly simple act of cooking is a death sentence for 4 million people each year, mostly among women and children in developing countries, I had to act.  I hope the supporters of Chime for Change will help me save and empower millions of women and children’s lives through clean cooking solutions.”

After all of their originally-curated projects were fully funded through THE SOUND OF CHANGE LIVE concert event presented by CHIME FOR CHANGE on June 1, CHIME FOR CHANGE co-founders Frida Giannini, Salma Hayek Pinault and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter have also recently added new projects to their Catapult pages.

Including, respectively: supporting Fondazione Rava’s efforts to promote confidential birthing procedures in hospitals and drop-off shelters in Rome and Naples; helping V-Day train Kenyan teachers to deliver self-defense programming to young people to prevent sexual violence through the Dolphin Anti-Rape and AIDS Control Outreach; teaching young women in the South Bronx to build and maintain a healthy self-image and long-term life skills through Elevate New York; and providing beauty and wardrobe necessities to women and girls living in shelters via Miss a Meal in Houston, Texas.

In a powerful video for CHIME FOR CHANGE, Julia Roberts joins Gwyneth Paltrow, JadaPinkett Smith, Cameron Diaz, John Legend, Olivia Wilde, Zoe Saldana,Freida Pinto, Evan Rachel Wood, CHIME FOR CHANGE co-founders FridaGiannini, Salma Hayek Pinault and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, and others to celebrate the girls and women who inspire them.