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Wyclef Jean Brings People “Together for Haiti”
20-May-2008
Written by: Ivana Cheong
The Haitian-born singer joins the ranks of celebrity social activists.
Perhaps it is becoming more of a trend now for celebrities to lend their fame to charitable causes. This Tuesday, hip-hop star Wyclef Jean announced in a Manhattan press conference that his foundation, Yele Haiti, has teamed up with the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFO) and the Pan American Development Foundation for a new campaign, “Together for Haiti.”
A Haitian native himself, Jean felt the need to address the needs of his country due to the recent food riots. Reuters reported that this new initiative aims to raise US$48 million over the next six months to provide food, and jobs for farmers in the poorest country of the Americas.
“The revolution has to start with the minds of the people,” Jean said during the conference. “You can't have a future without starting from the ground.” According to TheBoombox.com, Jean was accompanied by humanitarian supermodel Petra Nemcova and one of WFO’s economists, Dr. Jeffrey Sachs. Later in the conference, one of Wyclef Jean’s heroes, the former Fugees member, Paul Simon, showed up.
As quoted in Reuters, Jean stated, “We are not only interested in feeding people in response to the current crisis, but we want to offer them an alternative that can help them in a sustainable way.” “Together for Haiti” was created to feed 1.5 million people, employ 1,800 people a day, and provide fertilizers to 55,000 farmers. Jean also hopes to employ the newly-emerging idea of microfinance, developed by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank, where families who are not eligible for traditional bank loans are given small amounts of money to start a business.
In Jean’s initiative, the grants will be given to approximately 9,000 families to get themselves out of poverty. “We want to give them the opportunity to set up a small business which they can live on instead of assisting them every time there is a crisis,” Jean told Reuters.
TheBoombox.com said that this multi-talented artist is passionate and invested in every aspect of the cause. “I was born in a hut,” he said. “And I went to school on a donkey.”
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