Global Citizen Ambassador Priyanka Chopra was part of a fireside chat at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. The actor was launching the organisation’s Give While You Live Campaign, which urges the world’s billionaires to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
During the panel discussion, Priyanka addressed issues such as the cycle of poverty, climate change, education, women empowerment and the use of technology for social change.
The actor said that she became aware of the power of influence when she started working in the entertainment industry. Chopra has been working with UNICEF since 2006, and was appointed the national UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for Child Rights in 2010 and Global Ambassador in 2016.
She highlighted how important it is for countries to invest in their people in order to progress. She said,
“It’s all interconnected – climate change, lack of education, extreme poverty, the fact that kids don’t have the access to go to school, and lack of education on female rights – all of these coming together creates a vortex.”Priyanka Chopra, Actor
“Like in Nigeria, the average family has about seven children, born into poverty. That cycle doesn’t stop unless you educate those kids, unless countries invest in their people. If countries invest in their people, you create populations that other countries want to invest in, and that is so powerful,” she added.
Priyanka also acknowledged young women activists, such as Greta Thunberg Nadia Murad and Emma Watson, whom she says have inspired her “to become a better activist, to become a better person, to become a better philanthropist.”
“I want my kids to grow up in a world where the world leaders have listened to Greta’s (Thunberg) generation, where the climate crisis is contained if not averted, where a woman’s ability to succeed is a basic human right and not based on geography and chance,” she said.
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