 So we're now, we've reached the final 90 minutes of our 24 hours of programming. Welcome to new attendees and welcome back to those of you who are turning in for the second or third time and who visited other previous sessions throughout the day. My name is Caroline Fock. I lead the SDSN USA Network at the Sustainable Development Solutions Network with my colleague, Alina Lynch. Our network includes over 135 institutions across 43 United States, Washington, DC, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, four of which you'll be learning more about during the panel in just a few minutes. Before we begin, just a few housekeeping notes. To improve your sound quality, yours will not be able to unmute your microphones. We do encourage you to actively participate by submitting any questions via the question mark chat box in the webcast window. My colleagues and I are available to assist with technical questions. We'll be compiling your substantive questions for our presenters throughout the session. Thank you for joining us to close out the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. It's connected more than 20 national and regional networks across five continents. This session will begin now with guest speaker, Kerry Kennedy, the president of RFK Human Rights. Ms. Kennedy is an tireless advocate for justice and human rights, and I'm thrilled to pass the mic to her. Thanks, Caroline. I'm going to just see if I can make this work without my phone. So can you unmute me? Sure. Can you hear me? Yes. Fantastic. We can't see your webcam though at this time. Can you see me? Yes, it's wonderful. And you can hear me? Yes, absolutely. Okay, that's a miracle. Very, very good. Okay, well, thank you, everybody. I'm Kerry Kennedy, and I'm the president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. And I've been asked to speak for a few minutes today about building a pandemic-free future and a more just and peaceful world. As a human rights activist, I'm privileged to serve on the board of the SDSN. And people say all the time, where do we start? Should we start with the SDGs or human rights or global warming or a corona? And how do we choose what to do first? Those questions remind me of Muhammad Gandhi's a timeless wisdom. He said, recall the face of the poorest and weakest person you have seen. And ask yourself if this step you contemplate is going to be of any use to her. So we've not really separate the major issues that are facing our world. They are all part and parcel of the same challenge, the institutional injustice. And all of them will be addressed when we muster our collective moral imagination and bind up our collective wounds. Above all, we must start by prioritizing the most at risk. With regards to corona, we look at this at RFK Human Rights, we look at this in five impacted communities. First, we must help the disproportionate number of disadvantaged students who are unable to keep up with the lesson plans made easily available to their wealthy white peers. Amid coast-to-coast lockdown orders, virtual learning is the only option for our country's 57 million K through 12 students, but reliable internet access is often dependent on income level. Two, we must safeguard women around the world who face increased threats of violence as domestic abuse is flourishing in the close quarters called for during quarantine. Some countries like France have announced efforts to put up victims in hotel rooms and add counseling centers at grocery stores. At RFK Human Rights, for instance, we have vacated our headquarters in Florence, Italy and turned it over to the city as temporary housing for domestic violence victims, but much more needs to be done across the globe on that terrible issue. Three, we must release those detained pre-trial and in the immigrant detention who are unable to practice social distancing to prevent the spread of illness in the tinderboxes that are our jail sites. In the United States, when you're accused of a crime, you're brought before a judge who sets bail. If you're wealthy, you pay the bail. If you are Bill Cosby or Harvey Weinstein, you just pay the bail and you go home to your family, to your job or to your community. But if you don't have the financial resources to make bail, you are not released. Instead, your hands are shackled, your legs are shackled, you're thrown into the back of a truck and taken to a jail to await trial. That waiting period could be a few days, could be weeks, could be months, could be years. Jails are almost always overcrowded. Social distancing is non-existent. In the LA County Jail, folks can shower once, only once every three days and they're given a tiny sliver of soap, which barely lasts through a single shower. There's virtually no access to hand washing or masks or gloves. One woman we bailed out was in jail for $25 because she could not pull together $25 to make bail. Imagine the terror of a basic death sentence from Corona for something as minor as the unpaid parking tickets. Surely we can do better than this. And at RFK Human Rights, we've worked with the National Bail Fund Network in recent weeks to secure the release of more than 215 people in jails in 10 states. This week, we're adding two more cities to that, Austin and Detroit. These are the most vulnerable people to Corona, the least likely to be treated and the most likely to spread the disease to their highly vulnerable communities. Jail and immigration detention should never equate to death sentences. Four efforts to address and stabilize the global food supply chain during this pandemic must make sure the most vulnerable are protected from the 300 million children reliant on school meals to the farm workers who harvest our crops, who must be guaranteed safe working conditions and wages that are fair. The head of the UN food program warned just yesterday that we are on the brink of a global hunger pandemic with multiple famines of biblical proportions. And five, we must protect civic space as democratic governments and authoritarian regimes spend civil liberties in the name of Corona. For instance, China's mandate that citizens carry cell phones so that they can be constantly tracked, followed by Israel's announcement that citizens must do the same, must comply with the international law, mandating timeliness and sunset clauses, proportionality and non-discrimination. Winston Churchill said, never let a good crisis go to waste. Indeed, we have an opportunity at this moment to address not only COVID, but the institutions in society which have made COVID impact the most vulnerable in such a treacherous way. 53 years ago, our country faced another crisis which revealed the stark fault lines of economic, social and racial justice. On April 4th, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated. That night, riots rocked our country and 125 cities went up in flames. Dover, Delaware was under martial law for nine months. White city fathers across the country announced they no longer had any obligation to African-American communities. At that time, my dad, Bobby Kennedy, who was running for president at the time, addressed the Cleveland City Club, a bastion of white privilege. His words then about the need to address institutional violence ring true today. He implored us to, quote, bind up the wounds among us and to become in our hearts brothers and sisters and countrymen once again. Binding up the wound is in the end, what today is all about. Binding up the wounds on Earth Day. Binding up the wounds of the SDGs, binding up the wounds of human rights, binding up the wounds of the corona response. I wanna thank you. Thank you to all of you who are tuning in. Thank you for giving of yourselves to find up the wounds of all our society. Thank you to Jeff Sachs and Caroline Fox for bringing us all together. And now please watch this short video tape. Thank you. I think that the websites on such a critical issue during the COVID-19 crisis are so crucial. I'm a little emotional. Your sentiment of prioritizing those most at risk so closely aligns with the leave no one behind agenda of the sustainable development goals that's the core of SDSN USA's mission and is why we do what we do. So thank you so much for joining us and for sharing your thoughts at this time.