Shakira: Pop star, Humanitarian, Colombiana.

Huffington Post
http://bit.ly/Hptptm

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.

Local Business Investment in Education in Nicaragua

The Case for Local Business Support for Education in Nicaragua
The Brookings Institution

By Justin W. van Fleet

March 6, 2012
Citation: http://bit.ly/edunica

Given this bleak assessment, the time for the Nicaraguan business community to step up and support the government’s provision of education could not be greater. The business case is simple: investing in education in Nicaragua is an investment in both current and future employees, the safety and stability of the communities where businesses operate, the potential purchasing power of consumers, and a company’s reputation.

The author, Justin W. van Fleet, writes that an investment in childrens' education from inside of Nicaragua is the next important step in supporting the quality of learning. A survey of business leaders, as part of the World Economic Forum, indicates that the current opinion of the “quality of Nicaragua’s primary schools education ranks among the lowest in the world: 134 out of 142.” This extremely low perception definitely screams crisis, and as van Fleet points out, that certainly might have something to do with the fact that public and private donor financing is low.  The author claims that Nicaraguan businesses need to step up and show more support for education in the country by giving economically to projects that promote education. Two companies have stood out as leaders in the private sector in terms of giving back: Telefónica and Plasencia. The former provides technological resources (computers, internet, etc.), professional development programs, with a focus then on teacher development in general. Telefónica Foundation Classroom has a group of participating “marginalized” public schools. They are committed to expanding to more schools, and the latter, Plasencia works in the town of Esteli, in which the company piloted a “full-scale education program for its employees”, and an early education development program for employees’ children. Working with groups like Empresarios por la Educación, Plasencia provides a range of educational support, such as the all important university tuition. While some groups see the need and importance in community development and investing in local education, the author states that without working together as advocates, we won’t see the changes that the country's young population needs. 

There is an opportunity to make a sustainable difference in educational projects in Nicaragua if only more businesses take a larger role in investing. There is a shared social value at stake here that a recent forum demonstrates, as the author points out.  In our blog we have been examining news that relates to international investment, or aid, in education in Latin America. Many of us have an invested interest in Nicaragua and this article was very revealing (albeit short, but informative) in terms of expressing quite clearly not only the dire need for educational reform in the country, but a vital next step in terms of development where companies and businesses step up and start supporting educational initiatives! Although we live in a global era, it seems very little international money has actually trickled down to Nicaragua's education system. This article calls for greater local business involvement in education – an investment, as the author calls it, and an opportunity for both sides to benefit.

This article is particularly touching personally because our project, the Barrio Planta Project, relies strongly on the support of individuals and particularly, Nicaraguan businesses to stay afloat. Sadly, it's a struggle. We'd love to gain sustainability if only more corporations considered investing in local education initiatives. I think this call for a new, reformed, fairer type of aid makes sense. While other countries invest from the OUTSIDE towards the INSIDE of Nicaragua in the hopes of a return, van Fleet calls for a type of investment in development in which Nicaraguans invest in Nicaragua.