Award-winning Hollywood actress, writer, and UNFPA Goodwill Ambassador, Ashley Judd, will be in Sri Lanka for a short mission next week.

During her visit to Sri Lanka, Judd will engage with women and girls from different backgrounds, to learn about their livelihoods and views on gender-based violence.

She will also meet with stakeholders from the public sector, private sector, and donor community, to highlight the importance of investing in the reproductive health and rights of people.

Judd was appointed as a UNFPA Goodwill Ambassador in March 2016, and is a passionate advocate for ending all forms of gender-based violence around the world.

While she is best known for an ongoing acting career spanning more than two decades, she has increasingly become involved in global humanitarian efforts and political activism.

Judd has had leading roles in films including Ruby in Paradise (1993), Norma Jean & Marilyn (1996), Kiss the Girls (1997), Double Jeopardy (1999), Where the Heart Is (2000), High Crimes (2002), De-Lovely (2004), Bug (2006), Dolphin Tale (2011), Divergent (2014), Dolphin Tale 2 (2014), and The Divergent Series: Insurgent (2015). She starred as Rebecca Winstone in the 2012 television series Missing, for which she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie. In 2010, she earned a one-year mid-career master’s degree in public administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.