“Don’t try to squeeze into a glass slipper. Instead, shatter the glass ceiling.” Priyanka Chopra
Watch this famous Priyanka Chopra Speech. Priyanka Chopra, also known by her married name Priyanka Chopra Jonas, is an Indian actress, singer, film producer, philanthropist, and the winner of the Miss World 2000 pageant.
“Good
afternoon, and thank you and, wow. I am so privileged and so honored to be
sharing this afternoon with all of you and these incredibly amazing women that
are being honored today.
I’d like to
extend my congratulations to each one of you, Octavia, Michelle, Kelly, Patty, and
all fifty women that have been included in the impact report.
Your
achievements not just inspire me but also so many others to work harder to be
better and to make a dent wherever we can.
So, I’m
very, very proud to be standing alongside you.
So, in life
you know there are moments when you stop and ask yourself: “How did I get
here?”
Like: “Why
am I standing here?”
Well, this
is definitely one of those moments for me and I find myself going back to the
beginning, back to my roots.
I was born
to incredible parents, amazing parents who served as doctors in the Indian
Army.
I was the
first born and as far back as I can remember I made my parents very proud and
happy 99% of the time.
Okay, slight
exaggerations of personal achievements are allowed from time to time, don’t you
think?
My brother
was born a few years later and even then, nothing changed for me.
We were both
given equal opportunities, and I want to emphasize this, I want to really
emphasize this for you because I don’t think a lot of people might understand
that being equal might seem very normal but where I come from India and a lot
of developing countries around the world more of not this is an exception.
It’s
actually a privilege.
My first
experience of the glaring disparity between boys and girls came at a very, very
young age.
I grew up in
a middle-class family with extremely philanthropic parents who constantly
reminded me and my brother how lucky we were and how giving back to those who
were less fortunate was not a choice it was a way of life.
Simple.
I was seven
or eight years old when my parents started taking me on these visits in a
traveling clinic to developing communities around and villages around the city
that we lived in called Bareilly.
We were
packed into this ambulance and would my parents would provide free medical care
to people who couldn’t afford it.
My job at
the age of eight was an assistant pharmacist.
I would
count all the medicines put them in an envelope and give it out to patients,
and I really took my job very seriously, very seriously.
But the more
I went on these expeditions, the more I began to notice the simplest things
that distinguished a boy from a girl or a man from a woman.
For example,
girls were pulled out of school when they hit puberty because they were
considered ready for marriage and babies.
That’s 12
and 13 while boys still enjoyed their childhood.
Or basic
human rights such as health care were denied just because they were women.
Let this,
let’s call this whole experience trigger number one for me.
Fast-forward
a few years and many, many triggers in between.
Like a
producer-director for example early on in my career, I must have been about 18
or 19, telling me that if I didn’t agree to the ridiculous terms or painfully
low salary in his movie that he would just replace me because girls are
replaceable in the entertainment business.
That was a
memorable one.
Made me
decide to make myself irreplaceable.
But I think
what really moved the needle for me and ultimately led me to create the
Priyanka Chopra foundation for health and education and around the same time
partner with UNICEF was an encounter with my housekeeper’s daughter.
About 12
years ago I came home from set early one day and she was sitting in my library
reading a book and she must have been eight or nine years old and I knew she
loved reading.
So, I asked
her, I was like, this is, I mean, it’s a weekday why aren’t you in school?
And she
said: “Oh, I don’t go to school anymore.”
So, I went
and asked her mother and I said, you know: “Why isn’t she in school?”
And her mom
said that her family couldn’t afford to send her and her brother’s to school,
so they chose the boys.
The reason,
she would eventually get married and it would be a waste of money.
I was
completely blown, and it shook me to my core.
Eventually,
I decided to cover the cost of her education so that she could continue to
learn because education is a basic human right.
And a huge
necessity especially today.
From that
point on I was determined to make a difference and as many children’s lives as
I could.
In whatever
big or small way that I could contribute.
There’s a
really, really beautiful quote that I read recently, and I think it’s
absolutely appropriate to say, to explain what I’m trying to say today.
“The hand
that rocks the cradle, the procreator, the mother of tomorrow; a woman shapes
the destiny of civilization. Such is the tragic irony of fate, that a beautiful
creation such as a girl child is today one of the gravest concerns facing
humanity.”
Girls have
the power to change the world.
It is a fact
and yet today girls are more likely than boys never to set foot in a classroom.
Despite all
the efforts and progress made over the last two decades. More than, I’m just gonna
give you a stat, more than 15 million girls of primary school age will never
learn how to read or write compared to 10 million boys.
Primary
school it’s the beginning of our future.
Over the
last 11 years, I have witnessed firsthand the incredible work that UNICEF does
for children around the world. Especially victims and survivors of child
marriage, displacement, war, sexual violence.
But there is
still so much work to do.
And for me,
that is the fuel to my fire.
The reason
I’m so committed to this cause and that is where my passion stems from because
I know that a girl’s education not just empowers families but communities and
economies.
A result of
her education we all do better. It’s just as simple as that.
As
entertainers and influencers sitting in this room I feel that is our social
responsibility to be a voice for the voiceless, which is why I applaud each and
every woman in this room for being such a badass.
For using
your platform and your voice to contribute to change and for ensuring that
there is not even one lost generation as long as we are alive.
I’d like to
thank variety and all of you for encouraging me and all of us in this room to
keep going and fighting on.
Thank you so
much.
Priyanka
Chopra
