https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12538545/Chelsea-Clinton-hopes-new-donations-ideas-help-women-girls-face-increasing-challenges.html

Hillary Clinton embraced Olena Zelenska on stage at a New York conference last night as she and her husband Bill presented the First Lady of Ukraine with an award for 'extraordinary leadership amid unimaginable circumstances'.

The former Secretary of State was seen hugging Zelenska before she and Bill handed her this year's Clinton Global Citizen Award during a conference focusing on pressing global issues.

Zelenska, who worked with Hillary Clinton for the past year designing the Clinton Global Initiative's new Ukraine Action Network, accepted the award on behalf of all Ukrainians who she said keep the country going each day in the face of attacks from Russia.

'All of them are my compatriots and I am grateful for them,' Zelenska said. 'A leader is the one who comes to help, who stands by those who need help. I'm grateful to the American people and their friends and family for being such leaders.'

Hillary Clinton said Olenska was given the award for her 'extraordinary leadership amid unimaginable, difficult circumstances, and who has been a forceful advocate for peace and a relentless champion of her determined people.'

The former first Lady said CGI's new Ukraine Action Network is 'committed to sustaining a deliberate international focus on Ukraine and supporting new commitments to action'.

CGI announced numerous new programs for Ukraine - from actor Orlando Bloom's plan to raise $20 million to provide new laptops to 50,000 students to So-Light Design's pledge to provide 30,000 SoLights, individual solar-powered light sources, to Ukrainians who lack consistent access to electricity.

'We are in this for the long haul for Ukraine, Ukrainians, and for democracy everywhere,' Hillary Clinton said. 'Their fight is our fight. Don´t let anybody tell you differently.'

The conference addressed a series of global issues before wrapping up on Tuesday night - from food insecurity, which World Food Programme Executive Director Cindy McCain called 'desperation,' to climate change - with 160 new monetary commitments announced that could total billions of dollars in new funding.

The CGI also announced that it had added gender equity as a pillar of the nonprofit's work to sound the alarm about the increasing challenges women and girls currently face.

'Whatever the issue - it's connected to women and it falls more heavily on women,' Clinton Foundation Vice Chair Chelsea Clinton, who is the only child of Bill and Hillary, said. 'It also requires us to center women in how we think about what our collective response should be.'