In the animated movie “Tangled”, Mandy Moore lent her voice to a lonely young girl, trapped in a tower with no knowledge of the world that she was being kept away from. Off screen, Moore has been lending her voice to women too, working towards ending the very real issues that still plague the world. A Global Goodwill Ambassador for Population Services International (PSI), Moore was recently in India on a tour which took her to Bihar and Lucknow, where PSI’s sanitation and family planning programmes are active. PSI’s Donor-Partner and the ideator behind Indrani’s Light Foundation, Indrani Goradia, was also in the country for Project Wajood, a programme that works towards ending gender based violence in India.
While Mandy and Indrani met only this year in Trinidad, Goradia has nothing but praise for her younger colleague. “We got on like a house on fire. Mandy is one of those people, that if you give her a job, she puts in 150 percent. I’m so grateful to be working with someone who is so young and so plugged into the cause.” Moore joined hands with PSI back in 2009, and while she began her work with a special focus on children, her role since then has only expanded. Now, Mandy says that by virtue of being a woman, she feels connected to the issues that affect women across the world. “Working with PSI has been such an inspiration, and as a student of life, of global health and issues that plague women and children across the world, I’m so lucky to have Indrani as a mentor.”
This has been, for Mandy, a particularly short trip, but packed into it were two very important and critical issues; sanitation and family planning. In Patna, Mandy interacted with women whose lives have changed entirely, just because of improved access to sanitation and toilets. PSI’s on ground work in Bihar involves reorganising the market, involving the private sector and shortening the otherwise lengthy and complicated process of acquiring a toilet in rural and impoverished areas. The programme aims to address the issue of sanitation by working on not just building toilets, but also focussing on high quality, functionality and mechanical waste disposal.
In both Patna and Lucknow, Mandy met women who took her, as she says, by surprise. “These women were so spunky, confident, spirited! I was humbled that they chose to share their stories with me.” Mandy says that one of the biggest parts of her job is to listen. “I am not an expert but an advocate. What I do is listen to the stories I hear and then do what I can to impart it to the world through whichever means, whether it is via traditional media or social media, having meetings with government and policy makers or anything else”.
She adds that this trip for her has been specifically about identifying the link between gender and health. “When you give a woman access to basic healthcare, sanitation and family planning, you improve her life and self-confidence exponentially. You build healthier, stronger families, and ultimately, economies.”
Moore’s creative life, too, is influenced by the work she does with PSI. “I feel incredibly lucky to travel across the world with PSI. I know I have opportunities with them that I would never have on my own. The stories that I’m entrusted with are not lost on me, and as an artist, I feel that in no way this work will not affect the choices I make going forward.” Of course, Mandy adds that the work she is doing is not just a celebrity’s responsibility. “I think this is a shared responsibility, and we all need to be part of the solution. I feel lucky that I have a little bit more platform. But even going back home and starting a conversation about gender-based violence with your family counts.”
Identifying problems on the ground, Mandy talks about the need for more women collectives in India. “Truth be told, the women I met in India talked about wanting a stronger network, a stronger sense of sisterhood. These women also need that these issues come into the public eye, instead of becoming private problems behind closed doors, ignored by neighbours, friends and the government.”
