Inspiration and Activism
Photo by Unknown
Written by Gary A. Seidman
SwitchYard Media, Inc. - email | website
Designed and produced by Kent Harris
Tin Can Rocket, LLC. - email | website
A production of SwitchYard Media, Inc.
Photo by Andy MacLarty
Bono
U2 made him a rock'n'roll megastar, but these days Bono's anti-poverty, anti-AIDS activism on behalf of the world's poorest continent is what gets him the headlines.
The Irish rocker, who commands attention with a combination of charm and statistics, is a dogged campaigner for the eradication of African debt. His advocacy organization, DATA (Debt AIDS Trade Africa), fights poverty and disease, and was awarded the 2007 Liberty Prize. Bono has also been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
It's hardly the path you would have expected for the one-time mullet-haired singer. But for two decades Bono has used the stage and his celebrity to champion an array of global causes.
INSPIRATION: Bono credits "The Secret Policeman's Ball," a 1979 show staged to benefit Amnesty International, with inspiring him to get involved with social and political causes. Since 1999, Third World debt relief has been one of his primary concerns.
Photo by Alan Light
Oprah Winfrey
Generosity is one of Oprah's hallmarks. Coming from a poor upbringing, Oprah founded her Angel Network in 1998. It encourages people to make positive differences in the lives of others who are less privileged.
The network has raised more than $50 million and has received sizable celebrity support, including a reported $1 million donation from Jon Bon Jovi.
Modeling the type of philanthropy she hopes to encourage in others, Oprah has used her talk show as a platform for change. Following Hurricane Katrina, her appeal to viewers raised some $15 million for rebuilding in New Orleans. Oprah herself donated $10 million for Katrina relief.
ANGEL NETWORK: The Oprah Angel Network launched in 1998 with the goal of encouraging people to help underprivileged around the world. It has raised tens of millions of dollars and is only one of the many charitable pursuits Oprah is engaged in.
Photo by John Isaac/UNICEF
Audrey Hepburn
"I'm glad I've got a name, because I'm using it for what it's worth," Audrey Hepburn said of her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.
From 1988 until her death in 1993, the actress-turned-activist traveled the world advocating for the protection of children's rights and providing community-based health care, education, sanitation and other services to children in developing countries.
Hepburn made eight missions for the United Nations, including to Ethiopia, Sudan, Vietnam and El Salvador. Her wide knowledge of languages -- French, Dutch, Italian, English and Spanish -- were immensely helpful. For her work, Hepburn was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
LEGACY: In 1994, a year after her death, the Audrey Hepburn Children's Fund was created to support efforts to teach and care for ill-treated children. Its diverse programs include funding schools in Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Rwanda.
Photo by Courtesy Live8
Chris Martin
In 2002 Chris Martin got a crash course in fair trade, courtesy of Oxfam.
The Coldplay lead singer -- and husband of actress Gwyenth Paltrow -- traveled to Haiti where he saw how global trade barriers, government subsidies and the decisions of multinational corporations thousands of miles away impacted small Third World farmers trying to eke out a living.
The Haiti experience, Martin said, was an epiphany.
During the next two years, Martin and Coldplay gathered more than 30,000 signatures on behalf of Oxfam's Make Trade Fair campaign. And afterward, Martin involved himself in a number of other charitable endeavors, including raising money for victims of Hurricane Katrina.
CD RELIEF: In 2006, Martin teamed up with R.E.M. lead singer Michael Stipe to record a six song album to benefit Mercy Corp's efforts to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and Louisiana.
Photo by Jose Serrano
Shakira
She's already a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and founder of the Columbian charity Pies Descalzos, but in September 2007 the Colombian singer made big headlines with the announcement that a foundation she co-founded -- ALAS -- would donate $40 million to help repair damage caused by natural disasters in Peru and Nicaragua.
Shakira began her philanthropic work at an early age and has performed many charity concerts. In 1997, she founded Pies Descalzos (Bare Feet Foundation), which is focused on improving education, nutrition, and the lives of displaced children living in perilous conditions due to the violence in Colombia.
STARTING YOUNG: Shakira was only 26 years old when she was selected to be a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 2003. She was the youngest ambassador in the program's more than 50 year history.
Danny Kaye
The zany Brooklyn-born comic who sang and danced and performed a myriad of physical comedic feats became UNICEF's first Goodwill Ambassador in 1954. That same year he was awarded a special Academy Award for his humanitarian work.
For nearly thirty years Kaye traveled among third-world countries entertaining audiences of young people.
"He was truly a champion for children in every continent," the United Nations Secretary General, Javier Perez de Cuellar said in 1987 at the time of Kaye's death.
With rapid-fire patter and a hilarious shtick conducting an orchestra with rubbery arms and jerky moves, Kaye also raised millions of dollars for the pension funds of symphony orchestra musicians.
FIRST AMBASSADOR: Kaye once visited 65 cities in five days on behalf of UNICEF, piloting the plane himself. In 1965, when UNICEF received the Nobel Prize, Kaye was selected to accept it.
Photo by Georgina Cranston/UNICEF
Mia Farrow
Actress Mia Farrow is as well known as a UNICEF ambassador in support of children's rights, her fight to eradicate polio and her multiple adoptions of children from conflict zones as she is for her very public separation from Woody Allen and her estrangement from adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn, who is now married to Allen.
Farrow's latest cause has been the genocide in Darfur. She has traveled to the war-torn area of Sudan numerous times and has called on China -- Sudan's biggest economic ally -- to amend its relationship in hope of bringing peace to the region.
"It is no longer a secret," Farrow wrote in a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, "that some 70 percent of Sudan's Chinese oil revenues, which now top $1 billion per year, have been used by the Khartoum government to attack the non-Arab population in the remote Darfur region."
INSPIRATION: Surely some of Farrow's desire to beat polio comes from personal experience. At age nine she contracted the disease, was sent to an isolation ward and was not permitted to see her six siblings for months due to fear the polio would spread.
Photo by Susan Markisz/UNICEF
Wyclef Jean
Wyclef Jean, the Haitian-born hip-hop producer, former Fugees member and solo artist, has used his celebrity to raise millions of dollars to build schools, train teachers, create jobs and provide food in his impoverished homeland. His efforts often have people asking whether he's going to run for president.
But it is the social activism rather than the politics that Jean says is his focus. His Yele Haiti Foundation has been at the forefront of many projects in Haiti, providing management, financing and big-time publicity. Last year, Jean brought Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie to stir awareness of Haiti's plight.
Jean has teamed with the U.N. and others to develop projects such as Yele Cuisine, a restaurant run by poor women. Ten more are planned, financed in part by the Canadian Agency for International Development.
SONG SUPPORT: In 2005, Jean and Norah Jones recorded the song "Any Other Day" to benefit victims of Hurricane Katrina. Proceeds from the sales were given to the American Red Cross and AmeriCares For Gulf Coast Hurricane Relief.
Photo by Courtesy Muscular Dystrophy Association
Jerry Lewis
Few celebrities have been so dedicated and so tireless in their charitable efforts as Jerry Lewis. In 2007, Lewis hosted his 42nd Annual Labor Day Telethon, helping to raise a record $63.8 million in donations and pledges during the 21 1/2-hour show to benefit the Muscular Dystrophy Association.
Since he started hosting the star-studded event, some $2 billion has been donated to help those suffering with the neuromuscular disease. The list of performers who have shown up to support Lewis and MS has been epic, ranging from "Rat Pack" pals Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, to Ray Charles, Ed McMahon and Jerry Seinfeld.
In 2005, Lewis encouraged contributions to The Salvation Army and Red Cross to assist victims of Hurricane Katrina. But Lewis has also been caught up in some controversy, making off color comments that didn't go so well.
SHEER POWER:A survey conducted by the Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company in 2007 named Lewis as the most effective celebrity for raising funds and driving awareness for the issues he supports.
Photo by Jaap Buitendijk/Universal Studios
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie, half of the Brangelina phenomenon, has fast become a heavyweight celebrity activist.
As a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Jolie is an outspoken voice on behalf of children and refugees in war-torn regions. But her global activism extends into many realms. In 2003 she pledged $5 million over 15 years to start a wildlife refuge in Cambodia. And during the past eight years she has visited Darfur, Pakistan, Chad, and storm-ravaged New Orleans to draw attention to humanitarian calamities.
Jolie has also joined with fellow celebrities, such as Wyclef Jean's Yele Haiti Foundation, to work on health and education projects.
INSPIRATION: Jolie's first-hand introduction to humanitarian crisis came while she was filming Tomb Raider in Cambodia. Soon after, she began visiting refugee camps with the UNHCR.