Supermodel Iman Joins CARE CEO Michelle Nunn As First Global Advocate for Girls + Women

Iman and CARE CEO Michelle Nunn

Supermodel, entrepreneur, former Somali refugee, activist and Mrs. David Bowie, Iman officially became anti-poverty and humanitarian organization CARE’s first-ever global advocate. The role was created specifically for Iman by the esteemed CARE organization, founded in 1945.

The beauty entrepreneur’s new activist focus will be aiding refugee girls both domestically and internationally, including women and girls currently locked in detention centers at the US-Mexico border. The supermodel has a long history working with organizations like Keep a Child Alive, Save the Children and the Children's Defense Fund.

"This is the work that moves me. I have been involved with quite a lot of charities, but what moves my heart is women and girls. Since I was a refugee myself and because I've known the plight of women and girls myself, through my own journey in life, I was aware of what CARE does and I was aware of their long history," Iman tells The Hollywood Reporter of the agency, which originated the "care package" in 1946 during post-World War II relief efforts. "So, we came up with the global advocate role, where it's about finding out what really impacts women and girls around the world and here at home in America."

She adds, "We have to think of refugees collectively as humans. They're not nameless, they're not faceless, they're not just people who come from far away. These are people who are at the U.S.-Mexico border right now. I am one of them. People usually don't understand who a refugee is. I am the face of a refugee."

Iman will make her first public appearance as CARE's global advocate Wednesday at Advertising Week New York during an onstage discussion with Nunn. The talk will focus on the power of storytelling in the face of international crises.

In 2018, CARE worked in 95 countries, touching the lives of 56 million people globally.

Breakout Star Ugbad Abdi In 'Ugbad in Tanzania' By Viviane Sassen For Vogue Italia May 2019

Breakout Star Ugbad Abdi In 'Ugbad in Tanzania' By Viviane Sassen For Vogue Italia May 2019

Rising Somali model Ugbad Abdi is considered to be Fall 2019’s breakout star. She credits fellow-Muslim refugee model, Minneapolis-based Halima Aden as her inspo. “Before Halima, I just assumed there was no place for the hijab in the fashion industry,” Ugbad told i-D. “I have now realised that Muslim women can be anything we want to be.”

Ugbad is styled by Vanessa Reid for ‘Ugbad in Tanzania’, lensed by Viviane Sassen for Vogue Italia May 2019./ Makeup by Irena Ruben

Halima Aden's TEDx Talk From Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya

Halima Aden's TEDx Talk From Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya

Rising fashion star Halima Aden made another appearance in the pages of Vogue Arabia, posing in the November 2018 for images by An Le. The AOC post prompted me to circle back to watch Halima Aden’s TEDx Talk in Kenya’s Kakuma Refugee Camp, now that it’s available online.

Aden expressed profound thanks for getting the opportunity to revisit the Kakuma, which was founded in 1992 and is currently home to more than 185,000 inhabitants. “This camp taught me so many lessons and I’m so grateful I had the chance to return,” the model told her 620,000 Instagram followers. “A lot has changed since I’ve left but we still have along way to go.” 

At this moment when refugees are under assault globally, including in America, Halima’s words are deeply felt here at AOC. I also found this essay expressing in words by Halima many of the concepts expressed in her TEDX talk, posted on Dream Refugee.org.

Immersed in trying to piece together all of the refugee models and their intersections with each other, I momentarily forgot my own words from April 1, in which I already wrote that Halima Aden and Adut Akech were both born in the same refugee camp: Kakuma.

Adut Akech Says Even As Richest Model In The World: "I Will Still Be A Refugee. I Am A Refugee."

Adut Akech Says Even As Richest Model In The World: "I Will Still Be A Refugee. I Am A Refugee."

It’s been a phenomenal time for Adelaide, Australia’s rising star model Adut Akech. Launched as a Saint Laurent exclusive beginning in September 2016, she became the second black woman to ever close a Chanel fashion show, finding herself center stage with Karl Lagerfeld in the Chanel Haute Couture Fall 2018 presentation. In between these major fashion career milestones, Adut was center stage in Tim Walker’s 2018 Pirelli calendar, with its first all-black cast.

Now the former refugee finds herself on the cover of Vogue Australia’s December issue, in a feature about her life, her friends and family, even her school. Adut is also one of four models covering separate issues of British Vogue’s December issue.

Full stop. Back up Anne. Adut Akech corrects you, telling CNN:

“Even if I become the richest model in the world I will still be a refugee. I am a refugee.”

AOC doesn’t care about Adut’s favorite makeup tips. Backstage snaps of Adut at a runway show are not our motivating life force. Her family life and history as a South Sudan refugee in Adelaide, Australia do get our attention, and Adut’s Vogue Australia December cover editorial adds rich soil to her personal global story.

Halima Aden Returns To Kakuma Refugee Camp In Kenya, Films TEDX Talk, Becomes UNICEF Ambassador

Halima Aden Returns To Kakuma Refugee Camp In Kenya, Films TEDX Talk, Becomes UNICEF Ambassador

Model, beauty queen and humanitarian Halima Aden's life cup is overflowing with Gaia's bounty. 

"I was the first Muslim homecoming queen at my high school, the first Somali student senator at my college, and the first hijab-wearing woman in many places, like the Miss Minnesota USA beauty pageant, the runways of Milan and New York fashion weeks, and even on the historic cover of British Vogue," she explained in a recent (but not yet posted) TED Talk she gave at Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya — another first, both for her and for TED, as it was the first talk streamed from a refugee camp in the program's history. But the visit also held a special significance for Halima, as it marked the first time she had returned to Kakuma after moving to the United States at age 7.

Refugee Models From Sudan Share Their Stories: Shanelle Nyasiase, Angok Mayen, George Okeny

Refugee Models From Sudan Share Their Stories: Shanelle Nyasiase, Angok Mayen, George Okeny

Model Shanelle Nyasiase walked a dizzying 42-43 shows in the past month, as the Fall 2018 runway shows launched in New York before moving to London, Milan and then Paris, weeks after the launch of her spectacular Alexander McQueen Spring 2018 ad campaign.

AOC is a different kind of fashion website, with my own roots embedded so deeply in activism on behalf of women worldwide, but especially in Africa and very deeply in Sudan and Kenya. 

I was pleasantly surprised today to see 'The Modeling World's Sudanese Refugees Share Their Stories' on Vogue.com, with Shanelle Nyasiase featured, along with peers Angok Mayen and George Okeny.

Africa's refugees are populating the pages of AOC, coming from the US, but also Australia and European countries. I like the candor of this Vogue video and am happy to see the content evolutions in the magazine. Listening to George Okeny talk about missing a Gucci ad shoot right after Trump's inauguration -- because he was caught up in the first wave of the president's immigration travel ban -- hit home. Take a listen. Oh, George says his papers are now in order, so if you know anyone at Gucci . . . That would be Alessandro Michele.

Black Barbie Duckie Thot Stuns In Paola Kudacki Images For Paper Magazine Fall 2017

Black Barbie Duckie Thot Stuns In Paola Kudacki Images For Paper Magazine Fall 2017

Rising model Duckie Thot gives a meaty interview to Michael Cuby in the Fall 2017 Beautiful People issue of Paper Magazine. Duckie covers the issue in stellar images by Paola Kudacki, ones that pay homage to the Australian-Sudanese model's stunning doll-like features now maximized in styling by Jason Rembert. Duckie herself has embraced what Twitter calls her Black Barbie features. 

Cuby walks where angels dare not tread . . . a man's description of an always-articulate black woman's beauty:

Duckie's skin color is a large part of the reason her name has slowly (but, no doubt, surely) become a mainstay for the fashion set. It's a warm, mocha chocolate that's impossibly smooth and even-toned, and its dark hue is striking in a way that has made her simultaneously adored by casting agents looking for something radically different to the white industry norm and uplifted by the onlooking people of color observing -- and celebrating -- her increasingly rapid success. 

Speaking of being a Black Barbie, Duckie responds:  "Barbie is this perfect thing that walks around and I'm definitely not perfect. . . . "I'm so happy that people say that about me, because it basically is a lovely thing to be introduced to the world as this Black Barbie. I will take the title."