Shakira: "Colombia must invest in education to have peace."

Like her hips, Shakira's humanitarian work does not lie, and her bare feet never stray far from her hometown of Barranquilla, Colombia. Prior to wrapping her El Dorado tour in Bogota, Colombia, on Saturday night, the Colombian hitmaker and philanthropist laid the first stone for the construction of two new Pies Descalzos schools - one in Barranquilla and the other in nearby Cartagena.

Each of the schools cost more than $4 million, and are being built by Shakira's Fundacion Pies Descalzos in partnership with Costa Cruceros, the National ministry of Education (Colombia), the mayor's office of Barranquilla, the mayor's office of Cartagena, Fundacion FC Barcelona, LCI Education Foundation and the Swiss Embassy in Colombia. The two new schools will be built in the neighborhoods of Nuevo Bosque in Barranquilla and Aranjuez in Cartagena.

The happy Colombian music legend proudly left her hand and footprints on a cement cornerstone to mark the event. She posed with school children who gave her a warm welcome at the ceremony. Hundreds of fans waved at her and help up posters with heartfelt messages.

Shakira thanked her partners for providing for the new constructions, saying "Thank you for participating in the construction of these two new schools that will take us one step further towards quality in Colombia and Latin America". She also said, "Investing in education and offering equal opportunities to our boys and girls is the way to continue paving the way for peace." Fundacion Pies Descalzos already has four schools in Cartagena, Baranquilla, Quibdo and Soacha. "When some children don't receive the same education as those who live in better conditions we can't talk about a country in peace, we can't talk about a country with equality, because education is what equalizes us", Shakira added.

The Colombian songstress created her Pies Descalzos foundation in 1997 when she was just 18, after her first internationally successful album, in 1997.

Comments

Princess Qajar - The Revolutionary Persian Princess

Zahra Khanom Tadj es-Saltaneh commonly referred to as Princess Qajar was a princess and memoirist of the Qajar Dynasty. Princess Tadj was one of the best known daughters of the Persian king, Naser al-Din Shah Qajar who ruled Persia from 1848 to May 1896. The Persian princess was born on February 4, 1883 and died on January 25, 1936, in Tehran, at the age of 52. Princess Qajar revolutionized beauty standards with her full look and ragged unibrow, and her unmistakably evident mustache. She was a true epitome of beauty at her time. Princess Qajar was declared a symbol of beauty in Persia and was coveted by many men. Thousands of men wanted to marry her, 13 of whom committed suicide upon being rejected by the princess. Princess Qajar eventually married Amir Hussein Khan Shoja'-al Saltaneh and had they had four children - two boys and two girls. They later got divorced in 1907 after enduring an unloving arranged marriage - she married Khan when she was 13. The princess argued f...

The Lehman Brothers Scandal (2008)

Company Background : Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. was a firm specialized in the provision of global financial services. It was founded in Montgomery, Alabama, in the United States of America. The company had headquarters in New York City, New York, in the U.S. It ceased operations in 2008. The founders were: Henry Lehman, Emmanuel Lehman and Mayer Lehman. What Happened? Lehman Brothers hid over $50 billion in loans disguised as sales. They allegedly sold toxic assets [1] to Cayman Island Banks with the understanding that they would eventually be rebought. How they were caught : Their bankruptcy led to the discovery of the fraud. They filed for bankruptcy in 2008, which is the largest bankruptcy ever recorded. Their case was larger than that of Enron, Washington Mutual, WorldCom and GM combined. On September 15, 2008, Lehman brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (Montgomery, n.d.) . Their bankruptcy filing came in as a blow to the financial indu...

The finger-cutting tradition of Indonesia's Dani tribe

The death of a loved one is always an extremely painful thing to bear, and people of different cultures grieve in diverse ways, some more unique than others. A typically unique way of grieving is that of the Dani (an Indonesian tribe). Finger-cutting is a fundamental part of grieving for women of the Dani tribe, and pertains to their women only. According to The Globe and Mail, an estimated 250,000 Dani tribe members live in a town named Wamena, in the extremely remote central highland area of Papua Province. Wamena is only accessible by plane. Upon the death of a loved one, the top joint of one of a woman's fingers would be amputated, and smear ashes and clay across their faces. Prior to amputation, a string would be firmly tied to the upper half of the woman's finger for 30 minutes, to cause numbness. This was to reduce the pain from amputating the tip. In most cases, the responsibility of cutting off the top joint of the finger is assigned to one of the woman's...

Raissa's Blog - Best of Sports, Culture, and Entertainment

Search This Blog