Word: madonna
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...full-blown war. That may explain why, to date, Malawi has not attracted much attention from the rest of the world. But that's about to change. Malawi will soon be hit by a force that has thrown far more robust countries into chaos. Her name is Madonna...
...being Madonna, she's not going into Malawi quietly. She has already promised to raise at least $3 million to fund programs that would mostly help orphans there (another thing Malawi has in excess, thanks to AIDS. Of its population of about 13 million, 1 million are children who have lost at least one parent). Ground will soon be broken on an orphan-care center, which aims initially to feed and educate at least 1,000 children a day. She's financing--to the tune of about $1 million--a documentary about the plight of Malawian children...
Given that Madonna has never actually set foot in Africa (husband Guy Ritchie went earlier this year), the whole enterprise has the pungent aroma of a coordinated act of publicity. But one of the partnerships she has formed is with developing-world economic guru Jeffrey Sachs (who suffers no dilettantes): an agreement to provide $1.5 million for one of his millennium villages. They want to end poverty in one community--in this case the village of Gumulira, outside the capital Lilongwe--by simultaneously improving the health, agricultural productivity and education of its people...
...last few years--now that I have children and now that I have what I consider to be a better perspective on life--I have felt responsible for the children of the world," says Madonna, resting before a London concert. "I've been doing bits and bobs about it, and I suppose I was looking for a big, big project I could sink my teeth into." The "better perspective" she attributes to Kabbalah, the study of Jewish mysticism. Her co-founder in Raising Malawi, as her new organization is known, is Michael Berg, the head of the Kabbalah center...
...Malawi? It's a nation, after all, that used to enforce, by law, modest dress. Jeans on women are still considered by many to be unacceptable. It doesn't scream Madonna. But that didn't faze Victoria Keelan, the managing director of a Malawian agricultural-supply company, who got in touch with Madonna's Spirituality for Kids foundation a year ago. "She basically said, Look, things are crazy here," says the star, who has not yet adopted the argot of development experts. (Raising Malawi is probably the only aid organization with a staff member who would describe some poorly built...