- Tennis great Venus Williams is joining a growing list of celebrities who are working to raise awareness and promote healthier, safer, and secure indoor spaces as we start to gather indoors again.
- A longtime advocate for equality across a wide range of issues, Williams said the reckonings we’ve seen over gender and racial inequities, discrimination, and social justice during the past year are conversations we all need to be having right now.
- Williams is also raising her voice to highlight the need for positive action, and for people to find ways to work within their community to make a positive impact that goes beyond simply talking about issues.
Like many of us, when tennis great Venus Williams reflects back on the past year, she says the COVID-19 pandemic has made her “live one day at a time.”
“It was one of those moments when you realize you can’t control it all, so you have to be able to adjust to life and, after that point, not take anything for granted,” Williams told Healthline. “It’s those simple things you took for granted, like not being able to see your family.”
For Williams, winner of seven Grand Slam titles, it was especially painful. She lives next door to her mom — who is just a “15-second walk away” — but couldn’t physically see her for weeks on end.
These abrupt changes to how we live, where we can go, and our sense of safety and security have been on Williams’ mind as the United States starts to gradually move to a new stage of the pandemic, with vaccinations making it possible for more people to ease back to in-person gatherings, like sporting events.
Williams recently joined the likes of Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, and Michael B. Jordan in a partnership with the International WELL Building Institute and its WELL Health-Safety Rating in a campaign to promote healthier, safer, and secure indoor spaces as we start to gather indoors again.
The five-time Wimbledon champion and four-time Olympic gold medalist told Healthline that how we interact with our spaces isn’t the only societal shift that’s been on her mind as we confront a changing world in the pandemic’s wake.
A longtime advocate for gender equality, Williams said the reckonings we’ve seen over gender and racial inequities, discrimination, and social justice over the past year are conversations we all need to be having right now.
Source: healthline