Shakira: Pop star, Humanitarian, Colombiana.

Huffington Post
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As The Huffington Post reported, Latin American pop superstar Shakira joined over 30 world leaders at the 6th annual Summit of the Americas held over the weekend in Cartagena, Colombia, to advocate for children.

On April 16, 2012, at the 6th Summit of the Americas, Shakira joined President Obama and President Santos of Colombia in order to speak on behalf of President Barack Obama's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. She spoke about the need for education and early childhood development in order to meet the needs of the 35 million children in Latin America. She spoke about the need to eradicate of poverty, and promoted a type of collaborative development in which everyone can be involved.


Here is Shakira's full speech, and here is a highlight:

In the 17 years that I have spent investing and promoting education I can state that without a doubt, investing in education has never let me down because every effort and every dollar invested yields results and they yield results in the short term, because kids grow up fast.

Shakira should be commended for her humanitarian work and certainly serves as a model for the celebrity world in terms of giving back. There is absolutely nothing negative that I can gleam from this type of work in the developing world. Her close relationship to Colombia, being a native born Colombiana, makes her the perfect candidate to speak at the summit. Her voice is quite powerful, with her superstar status, and she is an excellent role model for young girls around the world and in Latin America, as she works to ensure quality education for them. With over 30 world leaders present, Shakira certainly stood her ground. Her activism on behalf of disadvantaged children is the work of a philanthropist that extends far beyond that of most celebrities. Check out this site for more information on Shakira and the wonderful work that she is doing: http://www.shakira.com/philanthropy/


My concern and question pertains to how realistic these goals are, especially if we consider that the 2nd the principal objectives set by the Second Summit of the Americas consist of

1. Ensuring, by the year 2010, universal access to quality primary education for all children and access to quality secondary education for at least 75 percent of young people, with increasing percentages of young people who complete secondary education; and

2. Providing the general population with opportunities for life-long learning.

For more information regarding the Summit of the Americas and Education, click here.


It is hard to know what is being accomplished and where we still have to go in terms of development and education in Latin America. However, we should be careful when making promises because it is now 2012 and these objectives have still yet to be reached.