Leadership Award Presentation with Laura Bush & Amb. Paula J. Dobriansky | 2021 Concordia Summit

Thank you, Matt. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you so much, Matt, and for everything, including your extraordinary leadership of Concordia. It has been my honor to chair the Concordia Leadership Awards Committee, and this awards ceremony has become one of Concordia's proudest moments of recognition for individuals who exemplify global excellence and positive social impact. I'd like to express my appreciation to all my fellow committee members for their hands-on role in the collaborative and transparent process that we undertook over several months to review the nominations and select leaders in each sector to receive this prestigious award. My thanks too to the excellent staff at Concordia who assisted us in managing this process. The nomination of Laura Bush for the Public Sector Award received enthusiastic support from our committee. Throughout her public life, Laura Bush has been dedicated to advancing literacy and education and women's rights around the world. As Chief of Staff to Mrs. Bush when she was First Lady of the United States, I had a front row seat to witness how she used so effectively the unique and powerful platform of First Lady to champion important causes at home, visiting all 50 states, and abroad, traveling to 77 countries. When Laura Bush advances a cause, She makes a difference, and she has a deep and lasting impact. In the long journey to empower Afghan women, Laura Bush was deeply involved in each and every step of their progress. She never left them, and they knew it. And I know she will continue to speak out for them in their darkest hour. To introduce Mrs. Bush, I would now like to welcome to the podium Concordia Leadership Council member Paula Dobriansky, who also is on the Concordia Leadership Award Committee. As former Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs and as chair of the Laura W. Bush Women's Initiative at the George W. Bush Presidential Center, Paula knows very well the leadership of our first distinguished honoree.

Thank you, Anita, and good afternoon. As Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs in the George W. Bush administration, I had the distinct privilege, pleasure, and opportunity to witness firsthand Laura Bush's remarkable focus on and the dedication to the women of Afghanistan. Making history, Mrs. Bush was the first First Lady to host the President's weekly radio address to heighten awareness of the oppression of women at the hands of the brutal Taliban. And so she did. The tremendous outpouring of support from American citizens across the country was truly extraordinary in response to her appeal. And significantly, a groundbreaking initiative of President George W. Bush and Mrs. Bush was the creation of the U.S.-Afghan Women's Council, founded in 2002 as a public-private partnership. Under the leadership of First Ladies Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton, both of whom serve together as honorary co-chairs, the council has worked assiduously to address areas of critical need identified by Afghan women. It also serves to convene interested partners and broker connections to meaningful, sustainable platforms. Key areas targeted and chosen by Afghan women include education, health, government, rule of law, and women's business ownership. Through individual initiatives and collaborative efforts, the U.S.-Afghan Women's Council has advanced the lives of countless Afghan women and children. And through her initia— Women's Initiative Policy Advisory Council, which is based at the Bush Institute in Dallas, Texas. Laura Bush continues to assist Afghan women to this very day. I am very proud to be chair of this council. The Afghan women who are scholars associated with the Bush Institute are amazing women, courageous, enterprising, and hardworking, and I am very proud to know them and to have worked with them. As Undersecretary, I also had the great privilege of traveling with Mrs. Bush on her 3 significant groundbreaking visits to Afghanistan. These were visits that I will always treasure. Her enduring compassion, dedication, and genuine care for the people of Afghanistan is truly unforgettable. Through her leadership and outreach, countless lives of young women and girls were changed for the better and infused with inspiration. Mrs. Bush truly made history, and her tireless efforts will never be forgotten. So it is indeed a great honor and privilege to welcome Mrs. Laura Bush to the 2021 Concordia Annual Summit as a recipient of the prestigious Leadership Award. Mrs. Bush.

Thank you, Anita and Paula, for that very nice tribute, and a heartfelt thanks to Concordia co-founders Matt Swift and Nick Logothetis. Thank you for presenting me with the 2021 Concordia Leadership Award. I'm honored. 10 years ago, my husband, President George W. Bush, delivered the keynote address at the Concordia Summit, and since then I've watched Concordia grow into a respected organization. Thank you for your important work. Today, as we witness the tragic events unfold in Afghanistan, we're reminded how fragile freedoms can be for women and girls. We know that a country cannot be peaceful and prosperous if half of its population is left out or does not have equal access, rights, or protection. 20 years ago, when I delivered the Presidential Radio Address, I first asked the world to stand in solidarity with Afghan women. I said fighting brutality against women and children is not the expression of a specific culture. It's the acceptance of our common humanity, a commitment shared by people of goodwill on every continent. These words are especially important today. When women and girls hold equal and active roles in societies, communities not only thrive, but entire countries are more secure and stable. And that's why through our work at the Bush Institute, President Bush and I remain dedicated to advancing the status of women and children worldwide. From Afghanistan to sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East to Latin America, we support women leaders, policies, and programs that promote access and active participation of women and girls across all levels of society. We've engaged First Ladies and supported their efforts to improve the lives of women and children in their countries. And through our Go Further initiative, we're reducing the burden of cervical cancer on HIV-positive women across Africa. With our partners, we're proud that over 2.3 million women have been screened to date. There's always more work to be done, and through the Bush Institute, George and I remain steadfast in our commitment to empowering women. Thank you to Concordia for this honor, and thanks to all of you for joining me in a global effort to support women across the world.

Well done. I'm back. It's now my great pleasure to introduce the recipient of the 2021 Concordia Leadership Award for the Private Sector, Niels B. Christiansen, LEGO CEO, CEO of the LEGO Group. So since joining the LEGO Group in 2017, Niels has spearheaded transformative work to empower children to become the builders of tomorrow and create a more sustainable world through learning through play. Under his leadership, the LEGO Group has incorporated digital experiences into its core products, launched the first sustainability-sourced LEGO elements, and has committed to making its packaging completely sustainable by the end of 2025. And as a mom who has helped put together I think tens of thousands of Lego pieces, I think this is a really big deal. In addition, Lego is committed to investing up to $400 million over the next 3 years into its sustainability and social responsibility initiatives, which focus on creating a world where all children have the opportunity to learn through play and develop the skills they need to become creative, engaged, lifelong learners. And I would be remiss if I did not say that Sesame Workshop is so proud and grateful to partner with the LEGO Foundation in bringing learning through play to families and children around the world, especially the most vulnerable. The world needs more champions like LEGO who bring attention to the unique needs of young children in crisis. And none of this would be possible without Niels' vision and leadership. And so it's a privilege to showcase the LEGO Group's approach and impact at this year's annual summit. Please join me in congratulating Niels.

Thank you, Sherry, for the kind words. The privilege is mine. While I would have loved to join you in person today, I'm happy that I could join you virtually here from our headquarters in Denmark. I humbly accept the award on behalf of the entire LEGO Group, thousands of colleagues, and not least on behalf of the builders of tomorrow, the hundreds of millions of children across the world. Children who are all looking to us, to you, to me, to all adults, to ensure that there is a tomorrow for them to build. A tomorrow where there is room for them to be creative, to live and to grow, and to do so in a safe and secure environment. I also believe Concordia plays a key role in supporting this very important agenda by bringing us all together across sectors. I remember my own childhood. I was privileged. I had few concerns. I played in the woods after school. I enjoyed a game of chess with friends. And I was blessed with a patient mother who allowed us to build Lego projects across our living room for weeks before she had enough and we had to tear it all down just to start all over again. It was a safe childhood with time spent to play, to learn, and to be inspired. Now, in our time here in 2021, our children may have time to play, but they're also exposed to an overwhelming amount of information they have to relate to— of pandemics, of poverty and pollution, famine and climate change, just to name a few. And many need only to look out their own window to see it firsthand. It's no wonder that children feel uncertain and concerned about their future. So we must ask ourselves, how can we help our children reduce this uncertainty? How can we provide them with the strong foundation and the right skills? And how can they build a better future? First of all, we must ensure that all children, no matter where they live, who they are, or what background they have, feel inspired, accepted and included and have access to learning through play throughout their childhood. Research shows us that it is as children in our very early years that we build the foundation for our lives through education and through play. Because when children play and learn through play, they develop critical skills such as creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking. And as parents, teachers, companies, decision-makers, we need to realize that these new skill sets are key to children's success as individuals and as part of their communities. Reading, writing, and math form an important foundation, but combine it with the ability to collaborate and to utilize critical thinking, and you have a powerful potion to help solve some of the challenges of the future. Through our affiliation with the Lego Foundation, we work with NGOs, with governments, and other partners across the world to provide learning through play to children. As an example, in Colombia, the Lego Foundation supports IU2. It's a social enterprise dedicated to develop the potential of children to transform their communities. Since 2018, the foundation has supported their work to strengthen the educational quality through learning through play for young children in rural and low-income areas in Colombia. The ambition is to make a positive change for more than 200,000 kids by 2024 and have a tested model that can be implemented at a national level. The project involves a broad range of stakeholders, a university, government institutions, foundations, local organizations, all working towards a common goal, providing millions of children with the skills needed to build a better future. In the coming years, it's crucial that we continue to work together to ensure we provide all children with these skills. Now, on a global scale, it's beyond doubt that climate change is the single most urgent challenge. It's also beyond doubt that we must step up our actions to mitigate global warming. If we're not to fail, we must work in partnership. Policymakers must continue to create national and international framework. Companies like ourselves must continue to set targets, invest, and work to reach them. And as individuals, we need to make choices in our everyday life. We must take bold steps to make the biggest impact. And children do expect action and impact. And I know this firsthand. We receive hundreds of letters in the LEGO Group every year from children telling us to act. I'd like to show you a letter I received from an 8-year-old girl in the US. She shares her love for the LEGO play, but also her unfiltered disappointment that we pack our bricks in single-use plastic bags. It's a great challenge. It's child's logic. Why pack a product in single-use plastic, creating waste? We are, as many companies, dedicated to drive change, and for more than a decade, we have invested and continue to invest in renewable energy, eliminating waste, searching for sustainable materials, reducing our CO2 emissions, and yes, getting rid of those plastic bags. But there's still a lot of work ahead of us all. Every step we take is complex. It takes time from decisions are made until impact is reality. Just replacing a simple plastic bag has taken years. In this work, we— the push from children is not only massive, it's also truly inspiring. We owe to the future generations to inspire them, to share our positive visions, and to support them in acquiring the essential skills so that they can build their own future. So when an 8-year-old says to us, come on, get going, my response, our response must be, we're listening, we're inspired, and we are ready to take action. Once again, thank you for the award. Your time and your efforts to bring us all together make a real difference.

Good afternoon. I'm Carolyn Miles. I'm the former CEO of Save the Children and a very proud member of the Concordia family. And I'm really honored today to give the 2021 Leadership Award for the Nonprofit Sector to Monica Ramirez, the founder and president of Justice for Migrant Women. And Monica is a true fighter for justice here in the United States, and she fights for women, for children, for Latinos, and a particular focus on highly discriminated women, including farmworkers and low-paid immigrant women. They are often the victims of discrimination and sexual violence. Monica is also the co-founder of the Latinx House and various other alliances that have done tremendous work here in the United States. She was also the author of the Dear Sisters open letter to Hollywood women, which, as many of us probably remember, really sparked the Time's Up movement here in the US. So we have a huge debt, I think, of gratitude to Monica for her tremendous work. And she was also on the first Latinx panel, all Latinx panel of the 2019 Concordia Summit. So it is my tremendous honor to give the award for the Nonprofit Leadership Award from Concordia for 2021 to Monica Ramirez. Monica. Thank you so much, Caroline, and thank you to the entire Concordia team and to the award committee for this award and also for your partnership. I've had the good fortune of being able to work with Concordia over the last few years, and I'm just so grateful for that opportunity because I know that you are committed to building a better world, and I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to work and walk alongside you. I'm honored to receive this recognition because I accept it on behalf of the women who I come from and the migrant women who I serve. I'm grateful to everyone who's had anything to do with putting this event together and also would like to congratulate the honorees, the other honorees for their work and for their leadership. You know, the women who I serve are often invisible to most people across the United States and certainly in different parts of the world. Migrant women do necessary work, critical work that literally sustains us all. The farmworker women who I come from, being the daughter and granddaughter of migrant farmworkers, these women workers They pick and pack the food that we eat, and their work is literally sustaining us every single day. But we know that migrant women workers in the United States and across the globe are often denied basic rights. They do not have the same privileges and protections as everyone else. And that is why my organization, Justice for Migrant Women, works so hard to fight to improve the conditions for these women workers. And we have the immense privilege of being able to get to know them, to learn from them, to make sure that we understand the priorities because they are powerful. They know what they want, they know what they need, and we have the privilege of doing that work. I hope that all of us will continue to embrace the mission of Concordia to work across sectors so that we can do our part to ensure that migrant women and others have what they need in order to live full lives. We need to do the work across sectors because none of us can do the work on our own. And I just feel as though it is all of our responsibility to make sure that we are combining our efforts to do that work. So thank you very much for this honor. I'm grateful. I honor all of you, and I hope that we will each take it seriously to honor the migrant women across our globe who are doing the work that we all depend on. Thank you.