12 h, dec 5, 2019 y - FORBES Amber Heard On L’Oreal’s Women Of Worth And Amplifying Female Voices ADVERTORIAL INTERVIEW

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Amber Heard On L’Oreal’s Women Of Worth And Amplifying Female Voices

by Celia Shatzman

Amber Heard has always known how to use her voice for good, so it’s no surprise that the advocate for women’s rights participated in the fourteenth annual Women of Worth Awards last night. The philanthropic program by L’Oréal Paris recognizes women who are working to change their communities. Ten women and their projects were honored, ranging from a nonprofit that provides guidance to parents of babies with Down syndrome to an organization that mentors immigrant girls. Heard’s honoree was Los Angeles-based Samantha Gerson, the Founder and CEO of UnBroken, which provides free legal and therapeutic support to teen survivors of conversion therapy and other institutional abuses. Each honoree is given a $10,000 grant from L’Oréal Paris for their cause, and $25,000 for the National Honoree who was chosen via public vote. Heard tells us all about the Women of Worth Awards and using her platform to make a difference.

What do you most admire about L’Oreal’s Women of Worth? It does the most important thing. It highlights the people who deserve the spotlight. It shines a light on those who not only deserve it the most but often have it the least and that can do the most with it. These are people who really deserve to be at the front and center of our conversations… [They] are on the ground doing work every day. They have taken the hand that fate has dealt them and said I’m not going to just accept things the way that they were given to me. I’m going to do things the way that I think they should be done. I’m going to fight to make the world what I think it could be—not what it is—[with] determination, foresight and the commitment to doing it with minimal or no resources. I couldn’t think of anything more valuable and these women are the embodiment of that spirit. They are there to remind us what that means, what it is to be worth it.

What is your favorite part of the gala? I love being in the audience. I get familiar with the one honoree that I’m presenting to, that I’m honoring, but there are nine others. The most fun part of my night is hoping I haven’t read about them before and I get a chance to meet them. I love sitting back and watching real time examples of what’s best about humanity.

Tell me about your honoree. I’m honoring a young woman named Samantha Gerson. She was just nominated for Forbes 30 Under 30. She’s very excited and she should be. She is standing up against institutionalized injustice, which I think is one of the most pervasive and insidious forms of injustice that we as a society have yet to really tackle. In fact, we see examples of how much we have yet to do that in various disciplines. It pops up in our electoral college, it pops up in our debates on democracy. Whether we’re pointing to people who have picked on individuals to attack or they’ve picked a system to abuse in which they can manipulate it to take advantage of their position of power, I think what we really have to start learning is how to dismantle and talk about institutionalized injustice. Samantha Gerson is a survivor of conversion therapy and she is standing up against that kind of systematic institutional abuse and injustice and I think there is nothing more important because the victims of institutional abuse are often the ones who are overlooked. Because it’s institutionalized it’s shrouded in mystery and it’s not as transparent as it should be. It’s normally a very opaque thing that takes a significant amount of people to tackle.

Why do you use your platform to bring awareness to issues that are important to you? I have always been a loudmouth but I haven’t always had a platform. I know what it feels like to be silent and I know what it feels like to be ignored and nothing, no amount of a microphone, no amount of attention and no amount of power will make me forget what it feels like to not have that. I have no option, I have no choice—I have to do something because I’m aware this platform I have is an incredible gift but with that comes an incredible amount of responsibility to do with it which is right, which is best for others. If not to use my voice and my microphone, my platform to elevate the lives, the rights and the awareness of others, then what good does it do me? I don’t understand sitting on a platform and not using it. What better use for it than this?

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