For the past two days, Madonna has been in Malawi. She went there to allow her two adopted children to spend some time with their biological families. She was also there to do some sort of work with the UN Millennium Village that Madge is helping to fund in Malawi, and she also laid the first brick (or stone, whatever) to her multi-million dollar girls’ school in Malawi, the one that’s displacing hundreds of villagers. Unfortunately, we don’t have access to the new photos of Madge in Malawi, so these photos are from her last trip, last October. Anyway, in addition to this flurry of activity, Madge also wrote an open letter on HuffPo, all about her $15 million girls’ school, and how we need to help her pay for it:
On my first visit to Malawi, I was devastated to meet child after child who had been orphaned by AIDS. Having lost my mother at such a young age, I felt a close connection to these children. Their stories had touched my own.
In a country of 14 million, a staggering one million children have been left alone with the responsibility of raising each other. I returned home knowing the future of Malawi was resting on the shoulders of these orphaned children, and I had to act.
So it is with tremendous joy that I return to Malawi to lay the first brick in the Raising Malawi Academy for Girls. By educating girls we will rebuild this community and raise this nation.
Our academy will educate, protect, and empower 450 young girls who are Malawi’s hope for the future. We will stop the brain drain happening in so many African nations — our students will receive an internationally competitive education while incorporating local values.
As an artist, I know the transformative power of art. Malawi’s culture will be preserved and passed on through the teaching of music, art, and dance in our academy. Once instilled with pride in their homeland, young women will understand the importance of remaining in Malawi and investing in their own communities.
I will share not only my own words of encouragement tomorrow at our ceremony, but also encouragement from women and men around the world who believe that the future of Malawi rests squarely on the shoulders of its girls.
As one Raising Malawi supporter wrote to Malawi’s girls, “You carry the future of your country in your school bags.”
Having seen the determination in the eyes of these children, I know they have the strength to save Malawi — they just need to be given the tools. I am so grateful for the many people who have partnered with me to provide the resources needed, including Jeffrey Sachs, with whom I am launching a new global initiative to provide access to education for all children on all continents.
It is with hope for a bright future that I am here. Tomorrow the brick I will lay is not just the bedrock to a school — it is the foundation for our shared future.
[Madonna’s open letter on HuffPo]
I do think Madonna is probably doing more good than harm in Malawi, even though at times her efforts seem half-assed and corrupt. What never fails to give me a chuckle about Madonna’s efforts is how, like in music and love and art, Madonna is always derivative of someone else. She got on the African adoption bandwagon, copying Angelina Jolie. But instead of going through legal international adoption channels, Madonna basically paid people off so that she could have a baby. And then when she got criticized for it, she played the victim. And now she’s being derivative of Oprah, trying to build a girls’ school in Malawi, and writing about how the girls are the future (I seem to remember Oprah using many of the same phrases). But the thing about Oprah’s school in South Africa – Oprah actually funded it herself. Oprah didn’t expect all of us to pony up money to fulfill her multi-million dollar vision of a school. Oh, well.
Madge in Malawi on October 26, 2009. Credit: INFphoto.com.
bitch has an estimated networth of 300 million, pay for your own damn school
I do think that Madonna’s efforts come from a good place, but she is skirting all sorts of laws and customs to see her “vision” fulfilled. I think this is pretty typical of her enormous ego: she wants what she wants exactly when she wants it. She wanted those two children even though Malawi was not a signatory to the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, and so she paid whatever she paid to get them. She wants this school, and so she is displacing villagers to build it.
Unlike Oprah and Angelina who, whatever their faults, work within the confines of international and domestic law to adopt/build schools.
Madge has already ploughed millions into Malawi, I guess she’s now onto what celebrities call “raising awareness”, and to be fair to her, she was doing the whole “lipstick lesbian S&M” thing WAY before Jolie – so she’s allowed a little payback, whilst Josephine Baker and Mia Farrow have been rainbow-familied decades ago.
When people do good, they are always criticized…..just like Brad and Angelina.
She’s got the money. She can pay for it.
It’s kind of funny how Madonna talks about children orphaned by AIDS, yet she chooses to adopt kids that have families who are alive and well living in Malawi. That’s great that she takes them back to visit, but at what point are these kids going to suffer from some type of survivors’ guilt by going to see their families/parents and then leaving them in strife to go back to their easy livin’ in LA, London, or New York. I don’t think Madonna’s arrogance or her actions will come without a price.
Sorry, but I just can’t jump on the praise Madge bandwagon. She is just a big old dork that has been trying way too hard to be one of the cool kids for way too long.
I agree it’s more good than harm, and for the kids who get to go to school there, it’s great. If this is what she chooses to do with her money, that’s her business, as long as she follows the laws and all. But Madonna’s efforts never strike me as all that sincere, she seems to sidestep a lot of rules, and there’s always rumors about all this stuff being heavily influenced by her religious stuff.
I always found that odd too, Leek – there are so many kids who have no one at all, and both children she adopted still have living relatives there. And her comment about the girls knowing how important is was to remain in Malawi…um, she’s moved both of those kids out of Malawi, so that might not have been the best way to phrase that.
Why don’t these celebrities pay attention to our own country?
She is right on with opening a girls school. Its is proven that the more educated girls are the more likely a country is to pull itself out of extreme poverty.
Who cares its Madonna, at least she is on the right track!
Jules: whenever a celeb turns their attention to another country, there is always someone wondering why they don’t pay attention to OUR country. My knee jerk response to this is always to ask, what are you doing to help OUR country?
It smacks of zenophobia, really, to distinguish between OUR country and OTHER countries.
However, to answer your question, it is because the level of poverty/need is so, so, so much higher in some other countries. If you’ve ever traveled to a third world country, you would understand that the need is so much more urgent- there are slums that are hard to even fathom, children dying on the streets, people literally starving to death, being killed in the streets by rebels, stripped of all the rights that we take for granted.
Anyone who wants to help anywhere has my respect.
None of them can come to Nigeria and do this stupid project. Truly Nigeria is in Africa but blessed with human and natural resources, therefore it pains me when pple say they are helping children in Africa or showing the world skeletal children when truly an ‘average’ Nigerian child is a ‘rich’ American child. I also pity countries like Malawi etc that disgrace themselves with this kind of ‘help’.
Well her heart seems to be in the right place. . .but seriously, how hard would have it been to follow international laws/rules etc.?
By skipping the rules and paying people off to get what you want. . .isn’t that like the corruption that rules and harms many African nations already?
It just reinforces the notion that if your rich enough, rules don’t apply to you–ANYWHERE in the world. . .
it’s a sticky wicket here. . .
“She went there to allow her two adopted children to spend some time with their biological families”
this is completely crazy… I mean, to adopt a baby that already has a family.
But at least she’s not a hypocrit and she’s coherent with her control freak-ish “I-do-what-I-want” personality (sarcasm).
Oh, and just for the record Angelina is not the first celebrity who adopts children from Africa, neither Oprah is the first person who builds school and hospitals there.
Carrie-
There is poverty and need right here in our own backyards. I personally care more about the US because I live here, and if other Americans are in dire straits, then it affects me. Honestly, while I’m sympathetic to the plight of people in need in other countries, we have to admit that our meddling in their affairs has not helped anyone. All it does is make them hate us, and help keep the dictators and other criminals in power so that nothing gets done. Aid does nothing good, these countries need to help themselves first, or at least attempt to do so. They are not children, they are not stupid, and Western nations are always being called colonial, imperialist pigs so perhaps we need to just stay out of it? However, if Madonna wants to donate her OWN money to help Africa, that is her right. I personally would not, I donate to charities in the US and do charity work right here. But to each their own, I suppose….
solveig i’m not sure if you are being sarcastic or not, but what’s crazy about adopting a child and allowing them to visit with their biological family?? You have to remember these families did not have the means to care for these children. Many adopted kids have extended family members that don’t want them OR can not take care of them. It’s actually nice that she cares enough to take them back once in awhile to vist their bio family members.
@ Kaiser…seriously????…AJ was not first rich white woman to adopt an African kid, and if that’s the point you want to roll with then someone could easily say that AJ was copying off of Mia Farrow or Josephine Baker.
What is crazy is to separate a family. I’m pretty sure that she can help them all, the whole family, giving them the chance to live a good life in Malawi and if she wants she can go there to spend time with them. Not au contraire.
AND she can also adopt a child, maybe someone who actually is an orphan.
no no no, you cannot compare Madonna To Angelina. i do not want to discredit any celeb who does somthing good-even when they are doing so to boost their own profile somthing good comes from it and even though i think Madonna is a fame whore i do believe a small part of her is doing this because she feels for these people. however, she doesnt seem satisfied unless people KNOW about it-she wants to be a trend setter, whereas Angelina has been doing this for years and really could not give a fuck what people think about her. you can tell the difference because here we have madge writing about how we need to know the brilliant stuff she is doing. yes there are photos of Angie, she knows her fame will raise the cause, but she’s not writing letters talking about how brilliant she is for doing this stuff. madge has money-why cant she just do it herself? oh right, because WE NEED TO KNOW how hard this is for her and how brilliant she is for doing it! even still good luck to her.
Maybe children who have family shouldn’t be in orphanages, available for adoption, then.
Madonna” $15 million school is a shrine to herself just like Oprah’s. If she really wantd to do something for the country, $15 million would give schools to a hell of a lot more kids than the chosen few who will attend her Academy. With that amount of money and the resources of the country labor could build Hundreds of Schools and provide education to millions of students and she still woudnt miss a penny.
She needs to a) pay for her own damn school, and b) dress appropriately for the locale. Seriously, how much do you think that outfit of hers costs? Those sunglasses alone must be over $300. She makes me sick.
exactly princess pea…it’s not Madonna’s responsibility to care for an entire family
and is this an edited version of her statement? because I don’t see the part where she requested money from others.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t she over-criticized because she adopted those children in spite of the local laws that didn’t allow her to do so AND because it appeared that some family members of one of the children (or both) didn’t agree to the adoption(s)?
Two birds, one stone: help the family and do act upon the law.
I don’t know, if I was her I would probably do my best to reunite those families, especially because it seems that those children weren’t abused by their parents (otherwise she wouldn’t bring the babies to see them).
Why does everyone feel sorry for poor people in other countries but in this country when someone has more children than they can afford everyone gets in a huff about it?