Ashley Judd Brings Passion to Role as Charity Spokeswoman

As the “global ambassador” for the the Washington charity Population Services International, the actress Ashley Judd has been asked to speak before United Nations delegates, members of Congress, and business executives. Her goal: to personalize the stories of people served by the nonprofit group.

“We all have access to incredible statistics and can go online and learn all matter of facts,” she told an audience this fall at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, the philanthropy meeting sponsored by former president Bill Clinton. “What drives my ongoing passion for this work is the personal.”

Ms. Judd was one of three speakers who discussed how countries can fight poverty by empowering young women. She recalled the story of Lydia, a woman in Congo who was forced into prostitution at age 13. Population Services International helped find her a new way to earn a living, as a hairdresser at a beauty salon.

“I thought this would have such a nice happy ending,” Ms. Judd recalled. “But what I discovered is she’s now supporting her aunt, uncle, and cousins. So she’s still trapped in poverty and hasn’t been able to reap the benefit of what could be her financial independence.”

‘A Clarion Call’

Ms. Judd says she tailors her message to the audience. When speaking about human trafficking to government officials, for example, she tries to avoid oversimplifying the issue. But in talking to the public, she tries to “represent the issue with a clarion call.”

“I don’t want to confuse them or give them the impression that we’re bickering amongst ourselves and they need to tune out until we figure out what our approach is,” she said in an interview following the Clinton event. “But with regard to what the solutions and best practices are, I do try to stay abreast of that. Even at PSI, we talk about commercial sex workers, and I’ve made a shift in my vocabulary to talk about prostitutes because some exploiters seized upon the word ‘workers’ and have said that workers are workers irrespective of the type of work.”

Ms. Judd’s speeches are usually laden with emotion, although sometimes that emotion doesn’t seem to play well with everyone. At a fund-raising event for Population Service International’s YouthAIDS program in Washington this fall, Ms. Judd talked about the “reverse culture shock” she experienced upon returning to the United States from Congo and Rwanda.

She said she felt out of sorts after the trip, and was put off by her world of “velvety abundance.” “My Tupperware costs more than their prevention and treatment combined,” she recalled thinking. She felt guilty about being surrounded by her “well-fed and inoculated pets.”

Her verbosity drew some sarcasm from reporters. The Washington City Paper blogged about Ms. Judd’s speech, entitling the post “The Weird World of Ashley Judd.”

The actress says that, despite the potential for such criticism, she is emboldened to tell the stories of people she has met overseas through her charity work. “I was terrified before the meeting of the U.N. General Assembly and I thought, How dare I?” she recalled during the Clinton event. “But the more I thought about it, the more I thought, How dare I not?”