‘Idol’ a hit in Africa with charity

“American Idol” viewers will never see this particular performance of anti-AIDS songs and dances in a modest community hall, but they helped pay for it.

After a star-studded “American Idol” extravaganza in April raised more than $75 million, the money is trickling down to charities in the United States and Africa. Five charities working in Africa each received $6 million, including an anti-AIDS peer education program where students fuse “What a Wonderful World” with African opera, and break dancing with traditional rhythms.

“In the cemetery there’s young people. The youth are dying,” said Mzamo Ngemntu, a 23-year-old peer educator in Khayelitsha, an impoverished Cape Town district of 1 million people. He said the project was all that stopped him from joining his many friends either in jail or in a grave.

The campaign called “Idol Gives Back” is the latest in a long line of high-profile efforts to raise funds for Africa by celebrities such as Bono, Bob Geldof, Madonna, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. This celebrity charity tends to help both the celebrity and the charity; the show was touted as the biggest for Fox’s “American Idol,” drawing 70 million votes in a single night.

The benefit to charity is small in the face of Africa’s deep-seated problems, but it helps. In the case of malaria, it means seven bed nets per average donor.

“It makes a massive difference. Massive,” said Martin Edlund of the charity Malaria No More. “A little money goes such a long way.”

“Idol” beneficiaries Malaria No More and Nothing But Nets say it costs about $10 to buy and distribute one insecticide-treated net and teach communities to use it. Sub-Saharan Africa needs about 300 million nets.

Both Nothing But Nets and Malaria No More also work with anti-measles, AIDS and tuberculosis initiatives, drawing on networks of tens of thousands of community workers who reach far-flung areas. It’s a smart, cheap approach with little scope for corruption.

“We have a saying that you can’t put a bed net in a Swiss bank account,” Edlund said. “Only populations who need them are getting them.”

The charities say “Idol Gives Back” also will have a longer-term impact -- it showed a global audience of 60 million images of the mosquito-born disease that is still Africa’s leading child killer, claiming one young life every 30 seconds. It’s a chance to teach people that malaria is an ongoing problem with a very tangible solution.

“American Idol” finalist Melinda Doolittle visited Zambia in June with First Lady Laura Bush and Malaria No More. Doolittle’s die-hard fans used to throw flowers to her. Now they buy bed nets, according to Edlund.

The Charity Projects Entertainment Fund -- linked to Britain’s hugely successful Comic Relief charity campaign -- also distributed “Idol” donations to Save the Children, the United Nations Children’s Fund, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, all well-established groups.

“With an enterprise that’s this high profile . . . you have a kind of duty in a way to start off doing work that people can recognize and feel comfortable with,” Kevin Cahill, president of the Charity Projects Entertainment Fund and chief executive of Comic Relief, said in an interview in London.

In Rwanda, UNICEF is using “Idol” money to help heal wounds from a genocide that killed 800,000 people. At Kawangire Primary School, 60 miles east of Kigali, pupils have formed clubs such as Unity and Reconciliation to overcome ethnic tensions.

Even though Rwanda has a record 93% primary enrollment, the school has a high dropout rate because of poverty. It provides free meals and catch-up programs to draw young dropouts back into the classroom.

“I had dropped out of school because my parents were very poor, and I was needed to do work on the sugar plantation because I am the eldest,” said 19-year-old Javier Ikitegetse. He is now enrolled in the catch-up program in his final year at Murama primary school, and hopes to go to university.

In Kenya, about $1 million is going to Kibera, one of Africa’s largest slums, not far from Nairobi. The desperate story of Kibera and two of its orphans, 12-year-old Grauman Omondi Amadi and his 8-year-old sister, Violet Akinyi Amadi, was broadcast to millions of “American Idol” viewers this year.

The Rev. Anne Owiti runs the Kibera Community Self-Help Program, known as Kicoshep, which operates a clinic, a youth training facility and a school. Few Kibera residents have running water, and disease is rampant.

“The money will go a long way in helping the needy,” Owiti said.

Back in Cape Town, school headmaster Achmat Chothia said the performers in the anti-AIDS program were no “goody-two-shoes.”

One performer, Taahir Fisher, 17, said: “Sometimes I might have a smile on my face, but my mum might be doing drugs at home. Always remember there is a tomorrow. You might have problems today, but the pain may go away tomorrow.”

Chothia said the performers, with their plays about the danger of drugs, sex and AIDS, were far more influential than classroom teachers. About 400 people are involved in the project, which offers a modest payment to trained peer educators and operates in 140 vulnerable schools. Local officials would like to expand to 300 schools but lack the cash.

The Global Fund singled out South Africa’s Western Cape Province for “Idol Gives Back” funding in part because of its strong youth programs. HIV infection rates for those younger than 20 in the province have decreased from 8.2% to 7.2% in the last three years.

“If it was not for the Global Fund we could not have done what we are doing today,” said Pierre Uys, the provincial health minister. “If you take that away, we are gone. It’s holding our health system together.”

Rajesh Anandan, head of private-sector partnerships at the Global Fund, said programs like “Idol Gives Back” showed Americans and Europeans that they were not giving handouts to charity cases but helping capable people to get their lives back.

“This isn’t about poor, starving, helpless, incompetent people,” he said.

He added that the “Idol Gives Back” donation was not merely a drop in the ocean.

“It’s easy to get lost in numbers of billions of dollars a year,” he said. “But when you get down to funding things that work and have a real impact, then $6 million goes a long way.”

Associated Press writers Kimenyi Felly in Kigali, Rwanda, Tom Odula in Kibera, Kenya, and Donna Bryson in London contributed to this report.

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Distribution of funds

The American public donated more than $54 million to “Idol Gives Back,” and corporate and matched funding brought it to $75 million, organizers said. The money was being distributed roughly equally among the following projects in the United States and Africa:

Africa

Malaria No More. Will support bed net distribution, education and monitoring to fight malaria in Liberia, Madagascar, Mali, Uganda and Zambia.

www.malarianomore.org

Nothing But Nets. Will purchase and deliver long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets to children and their mothers, provide education on malaria prevention, and train local community health workers to carry out the programs on their own.

www.nothingbutnets.net

Save the Children. Will address major killers of children, including diarrhea and pneumonia. Serving approximately 400,000 children and more than 500,000 people in Ethiopia, Guinea, Mali, Mozambique, Sudan and Uganda.

www.savethechildren.org

Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Will provide support for its program focused on strengthening and expanding HIV prevention, treatment and care in South Africa’s Western Cape Province.

www.jointheglobalfund.org

U.S. Fund for UNICEF. Will allow UNICEF to provide more than 800,000 children with healthcare services. Additionally, nearly 500,000 students will receive an education along with school supplies.

www.unicefusa.org

United States

Save the Children Federation. To expand programs in poor areas of Appalachia, the Southwest and the Gulf Coast, helping more than 11,000 children in 25 educational sites in four states.

www.savethechildren.org

Boys & Girls Clubs of America. Will help fund Power Hour, an after-school homework assistance program.

www.bgca.org

America’s Second Harvest. Serves 9 million hungry children each year. Funds will be used to distribute 250 million servings of fresh fruits and vegetables and provide grants to support more than 200 community food banks.

www.secondharvest.org

Children’s Health Fund. Will, among other projects, fund three new mobile medical units, including in New Orleans and have a special focus on the youngest victims of Hurricane Katrina.

www.childrenshealthfund.org

Source: Associated Press