2013
03/18/2013 - The Perlman Music Program Cocktails, Dinner and a Chamber Music Concert in Palm Beach
03/15/2013 - Asia Week New York Kick-off Reception at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,
03/12/2013 - Third Annual Fountain House Associates Spring Breakfast: “Between The Sheets”
03/05/2013 - NYU LANGONE MEDICAL CENTER’S FACES GALA HONORING LEON CHARNEY RAISED $4.5 MILLION
02/23/2013 - "I Have A Voice" fundraiser for Gigi's PLAYHOUSE
02/23/2013 - Eleventh Annual “Thanksgiving in February” Feeds over 500 of New York’s Needy
02/21/2013 - The French Heritage Society's Annual Palm Beach Gala Dinner
02/21/2013 - 24th Annual Gala of Heart & Soul Charitable Fund Auction at Christie’s
02/21/2013 - Eva Longoria Hosts Benefit for “Food Chains” Documentary - Exposes Exploitation in Am’s Farm Labor
02/13/2013 - Verdura hosts a fundraiser for“The Michael Feinstein American Songbook Initiative”
02/13/2013 - Lost and Found: The Pinajian Discovery, a benefit preview for the Fund for Armenian Relief
02/08/2013 - 56th Annual Red Cross Ball in Palm Beach
02/07/2013 - Lost and Found: The Pinajian Discovery benefit preview for the Fund for Armenian Relief
02/06/2013 - All Star Orchestra’s Preview Screening of their New Classical Music and On-line Education Television
01/29/2013 - Urban Greenwalk
01/23/2013 - The Perlman Music Program Fourth Charity Wine Auction
01/20/2013 - Budapest Festival Orchestra
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Shared Interest-Ninth Annual Gala
03/30/2009 - By Tavern on the Green Restaurant, New York

Shared Interest-Ninth Annual Gala

SHARED INTEREST HONORS HER EXCELLENCY GRACA MACHEL, GLOBAL LEADERS FOR WORK IN ADVANCING ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY IN SOUTHERN AFRICA.

To mark the milestone 15th anniversaries of its organization and a democratic South Africa, Shared Interest, a leading New York-based non-profit social investment fund, honored international advocate Her Excellency Graça Machel for her courageous defense of the rights of southern Africa’s women and children at an awards dinner on March 30 in New York City. Dr. Price Cobbs, a world-renowned author and psychiatrist, and pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson were also honored at the event.

Three hundred fifty distinguished U.S. and African leaders and top diplomats gathered for the annual event, held at Tavern on the Green restaurant. The evening's celebration raised funds for Shared Interest to provide black South African entrepreneurs with access to credit and technical support to launch small businesses, create jobs and build secure new communities.

Machel, Founder and President of the Foundation for Community Development for Mozambique, was unable to attend the awards dinner. In a video-taped acceptance speech from South Africa, she hailed Shared Interest’s work in economically empowering South Africans to “take their destiny in their own hands” and work their way out of poverty.

Through her organization, Machel has worked to strengthen communities and facilitate social and economic justice and development in southern Africa. She also served as Mozambique’s Minister of Education and Culture, where she was responsible a dramatic increase in primary school enrollment from 40 percent of children in 1975 to more than 90 percent of boys and 75 percent of girls by 1989.

The former First Lady to Mozambique and South Africa, Machel is married to former South African President Nelson Mandela. Her first husband was Mozambique’s inaugural president Samora Machel, who was tragically assassinated in 1986.

Shared Interest also recognized Dr. Cobbs, President of San Francisco-based Pacific Management Systems, for his lifelong commitment to racial and economic justice in South Africa and the United States. One of the nation’s foremost authorities specializing in African-American issues and leading psychiatrist, Dr. Cobbs is a highly sought-after lecturer on issues of diversity and corporate management.

As a Shared Interest board member, Dr. Cobbs offers strategic counsel on forging relationships between diverse people and cultures and has made a major contribution to the organization’s work with South Africa. His books include Black Rage, The Jesus Bag, Cracking the Corporate Code, and My American Life.

In accepting the award, Dr. Cobbs thanked his parents for their profound influence in his life and in motivating him to continue “pushing the envelope” to make a difference in the world.

Johnson & Johnson Co. received the Corporate Award for the company’s significant efforts to build healthy and sustainable communities in South Africa through its high ethical and philanthropic standards and support for the country’s emerging microentrepreneurs. The award was accepted by dinner co-chair Deborah Sandler, Worldwide President of McNeil Nutritionals, a Johnson & Johnson company responsible for developing the company’s growth brands of nutrition-based health care products.

“Tonight, we honor 15 years of Shared Interest’s work, hand in hand, with a democratic South Africa merging from the shadow of apartheid, and stepping into the struggle to build an equitable nations,” said Donna Katzin, Executive Director of Shared Interest, at the dinner’s opening. “With our talented partner, Thembani, we have joined South Africans in transforming the most profound human wrongs into human rights – by building thriving, sustainable communities from the rubble of institutionalized inequality and racism.”

Each year, Shared Interest presents awards to individuals and institutions whose initiatives promote and protect human rights, gender equality, economic justice, and democracy in South Africa. This year’s major corporate sponsors are Johnson & Johnson, MTV Networks, and The Nielsen Company.

The awards dinner’s co-chairs were Sandler of McNeil Nutritionals LLC; Peggy Dulany, Founder and Chair of The Synergos Institute; and Marva Smalls, Executive Vice-President for Global Inclusion Strategy of MTV Networks.

ABOUT SHARED INTEREST: Since 1994, Shared Interest has been mobilizing US investors, philanthropists, corporations and faith-based organizations to invest in black South Africans by providing microfinance organizations, agricultural cooperatives, small businesses and low cost housing organizations with access to capital. Its $12.5 million dollar guarantee fund has leveraged credit of more than $100 million to struggling South African communities that would otherwise have been considered “unbankable.”

**NOTE: If your media outlet is interested in official event photos, please
contact Shanta Bryant Gyan at shanta@sbgcommunications.com or call (646)
290-8211.

Photos: Anna Morris
Photos Courtesy of Shared Interest.


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