The second and last day of the conference was also a great success! It started fairly early in the morning with a walk across the Brooklyn bridge - on the way saying good morning to Lady Liberty - into lower Manhattan and straight into the financial district, to Wall street to be specific. GBCHealth clearly knows where to organize a conference: in the beautiful venue Cipriani, looking like the palace of a rich Roman emperor. Well chosen if you ask me, since the palace was equipped with everything you need to film an episode of the Oprah Winfrey show. And again today, there were many interesting sessions on how to mobilize business for a healthier world. For one, as Yashashree Gurjar - CEO of the Avantha Foundation and Group Head of Corporate Social Responsibility of the Avantha Group, said: "Businesses can't succeed if societies fail". That seemed to be one of the main messages of the day. In the words of Sarah Brown - President of PiggyBankKids and the wife of the former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown - : "doing good is now finally a part of doing well". Conclusion: we need to invest in developing countries to gain better global health outcomes. What made the day even better and very much inspiring, next to the delicious healthy food, were the moving presentations and stories by award winning actresses Whoopi Goldberg, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall and Sigourney Weaver as well as speeches from Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Member of Parliament Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah Brown, Former Brazilian president Fernando Cardoso, Kenneth Cole, Chairman and Chief Creative Officer of his own Kenneth Cole Productions and many successful business men and women with a passion for doing good such as Sir Richard Branson, Ted Turner and Cynthia Caroll. Not to forget the brilliant performances by Yvonne Chaka Chaka, Natalie Merchant and Vusi Mahlasela. I think it became clear that 10 years of GBC was just the beginning of the battle for a healthier world. The recipe seems quite simple: local governments and communities, schools, NGOs and large money-making companies all added together - with a little flavour of sex and the city. And some Designers Against Aids of course.

 

Walking the Brooklyn bridge into Manhattan

 

Beautiful Kim Cattrall on stage

(More pictures later!)