At age 32, Shakira has nine Grammy and Latin Grammy Awards, and has sold more than 50 million albums worldwide—but the singing sensation’s real passion is providing early childhood education in her home country of Colombia. In 1995 (when she was only 18) Shakira launched the Pies Descalzos Foundation ( Barefoot Foundation) to help provide education to children stricken by poverty. This past February, she used $4 million of her own money raised from her 2006 tour (along with $2 million donated by Howard Buffett) to open a school in her hometown of Barranquilla, her sixth in the regions of Altos de Cazucá and Quibdó. Nearly 1,800 children attend the 140,000-sq.-foot school, and its opening was attended by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who hailed Shakira as “a great leader in the world of philanthropy." Shakira hopes her efforts will “break the myth that quality education is the privilege of the few.” Previously, Colombia’s schools were so overcrowded they could only hold 16 percent of the neighborhood children, and while visiting one of her other schools located in a remote area of the Colombian jungle, Shakira said all of the children now getting an education were previously displaced or had fled their hometowns.
Jairo Castilla / AP Photo
After visiting poor and AIDS-affected children in South Africa in 2004 for three weeks to film a segment for her talk show, Oprah Winfrey was inspired to build an all-girls’ boarding school for grades 7 to 12. She dedicated $40 million of her own money to found the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, which opened in January 2007 near Johannesburg, South Africa. The school caters to promising young women who display leadership qualities, and Oprah was involved in every aspect of the school’s creation—from choosing students to attend to designing the facilities. The school boasts a student-teacher ratio of 20 to 1, state-of-the-art computer and science labs, a 10,000-volume library, and in 2008, the students worked with Habitat for Humanity to build 11 houses for low-income families, and have been highly educated about HIV and AIDS prevention. The school has received some criticism, mainly for its extravagance in an otherwise destitute area—it has a beauty salon, two theaters, and a yoga classroom—but Oprah’s defense is that the disadvantaged girls of South Africa also deserve to have a world-class education and will become the future leaders of their country. And when news broke in 2007 that a female staffer was allegedly sexually abusing students, Oprah immediately flew to the school and gave each girl a cell phone with her personal number programmed into it. The academy has now inspired Madonna to open a school in South Africa.
Denis Farrell / AP Photo
Outspoken rapper M.I.A. visited Liberia as part of the documentary series 4REAL, a show that follows its celebrity supporters (including Cameron Diaz, Eva Mendes, and Casey Affleck) around the world as they undertake humanitarian projects. The British-born “Paper Planes” singer donated $100,000 raised from a single concert to start a school in the war-ravaged country. She noted that in Liberia it costs $52,000 to build a school that can serve 1,000 children. With the help of Youth Action International, M.I.A. says the West African school is now built up to the roof and she is looking for ways to make it more eco-friendly, or people who may be interested in doing exchange programs after it opens.
Chris Pizzello / AP Photo
Madonna is continuing to give back to the country where her two adopted children were born. In 2006, she adopted young David Banda, and after overcoming legal disputes in 2008, came home with Mercy James. The 51-year-old singer co-founded Raising Malawi in 2006 to help the country’s one million orphans who face harsh futures. This week, she traveled to the country and broke ground on building an all-girls’ school similar to the ones Oprah has funded In South Africa. The Raising Malawi Academy for Girls will cost $15 million and Madonna said, “"If this school is a success — with God willing it will be — we will replicate it not only in Malawi, but in other parts of the world as well." This week, Madonna made a call to the public for more resources, saying she will match the public’s donations up to $100,000: “The girls of Malawi are bright and resourceful. They are eager to learn and grow. When I look at my girls and see them thriving, it is my greatest wish that the girls in Malawi will have the same chance for happiness.”
Siphiwe Sibeko / Reuters
Four years ago, Wyclef Jean established the Yéle Haiti Foundation, aimed at providing humanitarian aid and scholarships to students in his native country. In Haiti, where there is little state support for education and 65 percent of the population has no level of education, his efforts to promote the environment, arts, and sports are widely noticed. His next goal is to build a school, called the Yéle Center, and he said earlier this year, “I want something that’s sustainable for kids. One person got me out of Haiti, my parents got me to America. I took the dream back to Haiti.” The former Fugees star, whose foundation is supported by Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, has already installed a state-of-the-art computer center in a Croix-des-Bouquets high school, and in partnership with Fonds de Parrainage Nationale has awarded 6,800 scholarships to children.
Ariana Cubillos / AP Photo
After an 8.0 magnitude earthquake devastated the Sichuan area of China and killed 68,000 people on May 12, 2008, Houston Rockets center Yao Ming pledged $2 million to relief work and launched a foundation in his name to help restore schools in the area. “My thoughts and actions are now focused on helping to rebuild the schools that were destroyed in this tragedy and I hope that others around the world will join in our efforts,” he said after 185 schools were destroyed. On September 4, Yao’s first primary school was opened in the city of Guangyuan. The Xue Yan Yao Foundation Hope Primary School, named in honor of a young teacher who died trying to save her students during the earthquake, is the first of five earthquake-resistant schools are planned for the region.
Jian Zhang, ColorChinaPhoto / Newscom
The eight-time Grand Slam tennis champion has been involved in philanthropic organizations since 1994, when he founded an association to help disadvantaged youth. In 2001, he opened the tuition-free Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy in Las Vegas’ most at-risk neighborhood. His K-12 charter school, which “emphasizes self-discipline, respect, and individualized attention” for its students, boasts impressive statistics: In 2009, the academy’s class had a 100 percent graduation rate and 100 percent college acceptance rate. Upon graduation, Agassi told the graduating class of 34, all of whom come from low-income areas: “Tell yourself again the story of how you were a pioneer. How you proved all the naysayers wrong; how you defied the odds and made your parents and teachers and that one old tennis player very, very proud.”
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Currently ranked as the No. 2 women’s tennis player in the world, Serena Williams helped fund a school in Matooni, Kenya, and more than 18,000 children and adults came to welcome her appearance when it opened. The Serena Williams Secondary School, located southeast of the Kenyan capital Nairobi, opened on November 14, 2008 and was created through a partnership between the Build African Schools initiative and Hewlett Packard. Williams said she was inspired to help fund the school after touring Africa and asking how she could help: “If we create a society that fosters education and provides plentiful resources for financing college, than we create a healthier more productive society.” As the number grows of children attending primary schools in Kenya, more secondary school facilities were needed. The school, which was built in one month, is equipped with a computer lab and Internet for its students.
Simon Maina, AFP / Getty Images
Bill Gates may be ranked Forbes’ wealthiest American for 16 years running, but that fortune has not solely been used for his benefit. Along with Eli Broad, another important philanthropist in terms of the country’s public education, Gates put $60 million into the Strong American Schools, whose effort it was to inspire debate about the American educational system and to make it a top priority in the 2008 presidential election under the slogan “Ed in ’08.” According to The New York Times, it was one of the most expensive single-issue initiatives ever in a presidential race, including a $5 million advertising campaign, One Nation Left Behind, consisting of television, radio, print and online ads that ran from July 2008 until the election in November. “Each year more than 1 million students drop out of high school. That’s one child every 29 seconds,” Gates said in a press release. “We all must demand that candidates and our leaders share their opinions and policies on how our country will offer all young people Strong American Schools.”
Jae C. Hong / AP Photo
In 2008, Will Smith became involved in education by funding the New Village Leadership Academy in Calabasas, California. The actor, along with his wife Jada Pinkett Smith, paid $889,000 to lease the campus for three years, and turned it from a high school into a private elementary school. Although it was originally meant as a place to homeschool their young children, it now educates 60 children from pre-kindergarten to sixth grades. One controversial aspect of the school is its emphasis on the “Study Technology” methodology developed by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. While the couple denies that the school has religious ties, many of the school’s administrators have connections to Scientology. Smith said, “There are just very powerful educational concepts that we believe in, and we feel like we want to design the system that revolutionizes public education.” One less inflammatory aspect of the Academy is that it fits right in with the Southern California lifestyle, and serves organic meals to its students.
Richard Harding, PacificCoastNews.com / Newscom; inset: AP Photo
