New Jersey’s First Lady Promotes Family Health Initiative at Kean 

Speaking at a Women’s History Month celebration at Kean University, New Jersey First Lady Tammy Murphy decried an inequitable health care system in the state that she said puts women of color and their babies at greater risk in childbirth.

Murphy was the keynote speaker at U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez’s Evangelina Menendez Trailblazer Awards, held on Sunday, March 24 at Wilkins Theatre.

“I have made it my personal mission to improve the health and safety of all New Jersey’s women and children and to eliminate the abhorrent racial disparities,” Murphy said.

She outlined her Nurture NJ program, a statewide awareness campaign committed to reducing infant and maternal mortality and morbidity and ensuring equitable maternal and infant care among women and children of all races and ethnicities. Murphy noted that the majority of women in New Jersey who die in childbirth are women of color and that a black child has three times the risk of dying in the first year of life compared with a white child.

“This campaign is devoted to serving every mother, every baby and every family across the great state of New Jersey,” she said.

Murphy called the campaign “our shared future,” as she congratulated the women honored with Evangelina Menendez Trailblazer Awards. The award, named after the mother of Sen. Menendez, was given to seven women of distinction in the fields of education, health care, women’s advocacy and political activism.

“Today we celebrate the source of New Jersey’s strength — the women of New Jersey,” Murphy said. “We recommit to ensuring that every woman is given the opportunity to find her inner strength.”

Kean President Dawood Farahi, Ph.D., welcomed Murphy to the University.

“She is an amazing woman,” he said. “She is someone who succeeded in her own life and now is giving to many others to help them succeed too.”

Sen. Menendez paid tribute to his mother, a Cuban immigrant, whom he said passed along a deep respect for the promise of America to her children. He said when he works for equal pay for women, safe streets, improvements in education and other issues, he honors her memory.

Menendez said this year’s award recipients are being recognized at a time when women across America are rising up and speaking out.

“They are trailblazers; they are glass-ceiling breakers and history makers who make New Jersey proud,” Menendez said.

The 2019 Trailblazer Award winners are: Jennifer Skomial, New Jersey Teacher of the Year; Joan Dublin, president and CEO of Metropolitan Family Health Network; Marcia Marley, president of BlueWaveNJ; Elizabeth Meyer, founder and lead organizer of Women’s March on New Jersey; Marie Blistan, president of the New Jersey Education Association; Catherine Brienza, founder and president of JOLT USA; and S. Nadia Hussain, maternal justice campaign director of MomsRising and co-founder of Bangladeshi American Women’s Development Initiative.