This week, my family and I are in Malawi to attend the ground breaking ceremony for Raising Malawi Academy for Girls.
I am making a straightforward request.
I'm writing to urge you to join me in saving the lives of some of the world's most vulnerable children. And I'm asking you to do it right away.
Raising Malawi, the organization I co-founded in 2006, is dedicated to ending the poverty and hardship endured by Malawi's one million orphans. By donating to Raising Malawi, you can literally transform the future for an entire generation. To encourage your involvement, I've pledged $100,000 to match your contributions dollar-for-dollar.
Why Malawi?
Seven years ago I might have asked myself this very same question. Why not Afghanistan, or India? There are impoverished children, desperate for health care and education, everywhere in the world. Something about Malawi's children connected with me and their hardships were too much for me to ignore. So I started learning more about Malawi, and, little by little, I began working with Malawians to improve their communities.
Visiting Malawi can be a very humbling experience. In the face of such overwhelming challenges, it's easy to feel helpless. At the same time, it is impossible not to recognize how much we can do to improve the lives of vulnerable children. Right now, I am particularly concerned about Malawian girls whose lives are made even more difficult simply because of their gender.
In 2008 Raising Malawi announced the creation of an all-girls boarding school, the Raising Malawi Academy for Girls. Architects have drawn up plans. We've identified a plot of land. And some of Malawi's poorest girls are eager for the opportunities that a comprehensive secondary education will bring them. But we're still in need of additional funds to complete this project, and there's no time to lose.
My own daughters will each have a solid secondary education. They have a family that assures them that they can be anything they want to be, that they are not limited in any way. I believe that the same should be true for girls in every part of the world, regardless of the circumstances of their birth. The girls of Malawi are bright and resourceful. They are eager to learn and grow. When I look at my girls and see them thriving, it is my greatest wish that the girls in Malawi will have the same chance for happiness.
This is where you come in.
Please join me in supporting the work of Raising Malawi. Every dollar we collect will make a huge difference in a child's life. By matching your donation, dollar for dollar, I will personally ensure that your contribution has an even greater impact. That's a promise.
This is my call to you: Give an opportunity to a child who would otherwise have none. Support the work of Raising Malawi.
Will you join me?
Please visit www.raisingmalawi.org/madonnamatch to contribute and learn more.
How about "Raising Detroit"? You remember Detroit don't you? Seems not. My son called me yesterday from Ann Arbor to ask if I would help him find winter coats and blankets for the homeless people he sees every day on the streets around him, and Ann Arbor is one of the wealthiest cities in Michigan.
This seems like payback to the Malawi government for allowing you to go into their country, circumvent their adoption laws and adopt two children who have living blood relatives.
You went shopping for your charm bracelett children but didn't want to wait in line like everbody else and now you have the audacity to ask average people, many without jobs, health insurance or even homes to help you pay back the debt that you owe to the people of Malawi.
Madonna: Don't Preach.
Children the world over need help and if Madonna is willing to put her time, energy and celebrity where there is need, then good for her.
And good for anyone moved to just go help. Buy some groceries and take them to a food bank. Give a few hours to a charity some weekend. Help your elderly neighbor with her yard or her shopping.
We can all help. Anyone bitching about this needs to remove their blinders and negativity and open up to how being of help to someone you don't know can be truly fulfilling.
Also, if you'd expand your thinking a bit, you'd perhaps realize that problems in other countries do affect things in America. . .no nation is disconnected from another, and no people are truly isolated from another. We're all connected, and help anywhere is help everywhere.
People in this country are not adopting little black kids, and that's a tragedy because they will be part of our society one day. The kids in Africa will not.
It's one thing to criticize the bailout masterminds ---who have literally stolen food, jobs, opportunity and shelter from struggling Americans--- and who will laughably go on to make loud donations to charities (with our money) just to confuse the gullible and delude themselves. There really is too much of that hypocrisy and it's a wonder those who put a price tag on their own self respect don't realize how transparent they are to others.
It is another thing to criticize the philanthropy of anyone who has earned --and not stolen or been destructive to others-- their fortunes. Madonna certainly falls in this category.
This is heartwarming to hear. Good for Madonna!
If half of those people got out and did something instead of just complained about it, we would be much better off.
Building these schools in Africa is a lovely thought, but it will mean nothing if these students cannot get jobs in their own country. They will immigrate to western countries and have a better life, which is great, but only at the expense of a citizen of that country who now has one less potential job. The successful (those who were educated by foreign dollars) leave their home countries, and likely never return, that shouldnt be the thought process in Africa for establishing success. Thus everyone left will not be successful, and you once again have a poor country with uneducated citizens, and that is a breeding ground for unrest.
our charity, especially governmental, is more about repression than a hand up.
detroit is a falsely large city, made big by the wartime industrial expansion.
the whole midwest would do better with a HUGE portion of it converted back to prarie.
Peace.