Madonna starts Africa baby mission
Madonna arrived in Malawi on Wednesday to fund an orphan center for 1,000 children, many of whom lost parents to AIDS.
A fleet of cars and trucks specially flown in whisked her and her entourage to an undisclosed location soon after their private plane landed at Lilongwe.
“She came straight from the plane, greeted the minister (of women and development) in the VIP lounge, then (went) straight to her car,” said Adrina Michiela, a government spokeswoman.
Madonna’s trip has stoked high expectations in Malawi, an impoverished nation of 13 million people who are dependent on tobacco exports. The country, like others in the region, has been decimated socially and economically by AIDS.
Madonna has said she plans to spend at least $3 million on programs to support orphans in Malawi and another $1 million to fund a documentary about the plight of children in the country.
She is scheduled to travel to Mphandula on Thursday, a village 20 km (12.5 miles) outside Lilongwe, where she is funding the construction of the Raising Malawi center to feed and educate orphans.
Madonna, who already has two children, is also making arrangements to adopt a child, according to the Malawi government, which is helping to locate a suitable candidate and planning to exempt her from a ban on non-resident adoptions.
Residents in Mphandula, which has no electricity, were busy on Wednesday rehearsing songs and making preparations.
“We will show her how we in Malawi welcome such visitors who are ready to help,” the village chief said.
Critics have described the project as a publicity stunt that follows in the footsteps of other celebrities who have taken up causes on the world’s poorest continent.
As part of their studies, orphans at the center will be taught a curriculum based on Spirituality for Kids linked to the Kabbalah school of mysticism to which Madonna adheres.
Source: Reuters. Thanks to G-lock.
Madonna arrived in Malawi on Wednesday on a mission to help AIDS orphans – and may leave with a child adopted in this impoverished southern African country. Andrina Mchiela, secretary to the minister for gender and child welfare, said the pop star planned to adopt a child and launch six projects to help underprivileged children during her stay.
Madonna and an entourage of some 10 people landed on a private plane in the capital Lilongwe just after 9 a.m., according to Mchiela. There had been no prior announcement.
Madonna was expected to spend Wednesday resting in the capital, Lilongwe. She was to travel Thursday to Mphandula, a village about 30 miles from the capital, where she wants to set up an education and feeding center for children orphaned by the AIDS epidemic.
Malawi is among the poorest countries in the world, trapped in a seemingly endless cycle of hunger and disease. HIV/AIDS infects just over 14 percent of the 12 million population – most of them economically active adults – and has left an estimated 1 million children orphaned.
In villages like Mphandula, many orphaned children are cared for either by siblings or grandparents, who struggle to find food for the extended family. There is no electricity in the village and the inhabitants live in mud and thatched huts.
Televisions are nonexistent and radios are rare, meaning that most of the villagers have never even heard Madonna sing.
Madonna unveiled her plans for Malawi in an interview in August with Time magazine. She said she wants to raise at least $3 million for programs to support AIDS orphans. Madonna joins a growing list of entertainer-activists who have focused on Africa. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, whose child was born in Namibia earlier this year, recently announced they would donate $1 million each to two humanitarian organizations active on the continent. Actor and director George Clooney has campaigned passionately for the victims of the violence in the Darfur region of Sudan.
Madonna has teamed up with developing-world economic expert Jeffrey Sachs on programs in Malawi, and she’s met with former U.S. President Bill Clinton about bringing low-cost medicines to the country.
Sachs has launched a series of comprehensive projects to transform villages in Africa, and Clinton last month announced a campaign against rural poverty in Malawi that will focus in part on combatting AIDS.
Source: The Associated Press.