מאמר יפה : תהנו
Shakira, she of the bum-gyrating, belly-wriggling Latin pop songs Hips Don’t Lie and Underneath Your Clothes, is being kissed by nuns. Around her swarm photographers, reporters, fans and minders, as you’d expect of a 40m-album-selling artist; “Shaki, Shaki, over here,” they shout. She poses for pictures, patient as the sisters, smiling serenely. She has just stepped offstage, but she’s not wearing her usual low-slung hipsters or bikini top, and she hasn’t been gyrating tonight. She’s all in black — a sleek, smart shift dress — and her trademark tousled curls are soberly straight. Shakira has just given a speech in front of the Colombian president, Alvaro Uribe, the media and hundreds of children and parents at the £4m school she built in a poor suburb of her home town, Barranquilla, which she paid for mainly with funds from her last tour. This is the other Shakira: Colombia’s Lady Di, a national treasure. The nuns that teach in her schools love her as much as the kids who imitate her hip-thrusting dance move Among her entourage and those on stage with her at the school inauguration was Uribe himself; Alejandro Char Chaljub, the charismatic mayor of Barranquilla; the elegant Colombian former foreign minister Maria Emma Mejia; and Shakira’s boyfriend and sort-of fiancée, Antonio, the son of the former Argentinian president Fernando de la Rua. A formidable line-up. Worldwide, politicians and philanthropists queue up to work alongside her charitable foundation for education, Pies Descalzos (“Bare Feet” in English), which she founded aged 19. She’s provided education and jobs to some 30,000 Colombians, who were previously unemployed and strangers to schooling. So why is Shakira so often written off as some kind of Hispanic, belly-dancing Britney? It’s easy to see how people could get Shakira wrong — she’s something of a mixed message, part girlish sex bomb, part Mother Theresa. “I’m not a virgin but I’m not the whore you think [I am],” one of her lyrics declares. Another of her songs features the infamously daft line “Lucky that my breasts are small and humble/So you don’t confuse them with mountains”. But when not suggestively (she prefers the word “sensually”) grinding her hips to her distinctive fusion of Latin American, salsa and Middle Eastern pop — which she writes and produces herself — she is a Unicef ambassador, and contributes to Newsweek. She speaks superb, self-taught English, and lists among her interests world history, politics and art. But Shakira’s next step, with the help of Trevor Nielsen, the president of the Global Philanthropy Group, is launching the foundation worldwide under its English name, Barefoot, in an attempt to reach the 300m-plus children in the world’s poorest countries who don’t attend school. “What we want, ultimately, is to set up a global fund for education,” says Trevor, “whereby the many aid organisations that work towards education are fed and co-ordinated by one body. Unfortunately, given the state of global economies right now, education isn’t a priority. Governments should realise that the cost of educating the poorest children is far less than the cost of not educating them. Education prevents the spread of disease, improves the efficiency of agriculture, and boosts employability.” Shakira’s popularity could bump the global education issue up the priority list. With Unesco lobbying for quality education for all by 2015, it’s already on the agenda, but could do with the kick, perhaps, that Bono and Geldof gave to the issue of Third-World debt. Is Shakira the next Geldof? It’s clearly something Trevor has considered: “If she isn’t, I don’t know who she is?
Shakira, she of the bum-gyrating, belly-wriggling Latin pop songs Hips Don’t Lie and Underneath Your Clothes, is being kissed by nuns. Around her swarm photographers, reporters, fans and minders, as you’d expect of a 40m-album-selling artist; “Shaki, Shaki, over here,” they shout. She poses for pictures, patient as the sisters, smiling serenely. She has just stepped offstage, but she’s not wearing her usual low-slung hipsters or bikini top, and she hasn’t been gyrating tonight. She’s all in black — a sleek, smart shift dress — and her trademark tousled curls are soberly straight. Shakira has just given a speech in front of the Colombian president, Alvaro Uribe, the media and hundreds of children and parents at the £4m school she built in a poor suburb of her home town, Barranquilla, which she paid for mainly with funds from her last tour. This is the other Shakira: Colombia’s Lady Di, a national treasure. The nuns that teach in her schools love her as much as the kids who imitate her hip-thrusting dance move Among her entourage and those on stage with her at the school inauguration was Uribe himself; Alejandro Char Chaljub, the charismatic mayor of Barranquilla; the elegant Colombian former foreign minister Maria Emma Mejia; and Shakira’s boyfriend and sort-of fiancée, Antonio, the son of the former Argentinian president Fernando de la Rua. A formidable line-up. Worldwide, politicians and philanthropists queue up to work alongside her charitable foundation for education, Pies Descalzos (“Bare Feet” in English), which she founded aged 19. She’s provided education and jobs to some 30,000 Colombians, who were previously unemployed and strangers to schooling. So why is Shakira so often written off as some kind of Hispanic, belly-dancing Britney? It’s easy to see how people could get Shakira wrong — she’s something of a mixed message, part girlish sex bomb, part Mother Theresa. “I’m not a virgin but I’m not the whore you think [I am],” one of her lyrics declares. Another of her songs features the infamously daft line “Lucky that my breasts are small and humble/So you don’t confuse them with mountains”. But when not suggestively (she prefers the word “sensually”) grinding her hips to her distinctive fusion of Latin American, salsa and Middle Eastern pop — which she writes and produces herself — she is a Unicef ambassador, and contributes to Newsweek. She speaks superb, self-taught English, and lists among her interests world history, politics and art. But Shakira’s next step, with the help of Trevor Nielsen, the president of the Global Philanthropy Group, is launching the foundation worldwide under its English name, Barefoot, in an attempt to reach the 300m-plus children in the world’s poorest countries who don’t attend school. “What we want, ultimately, is to set up a global fund for education,” says Trevor, “whereby the many aid organisations that work towards education are fed and co-ordinated by one body. Unfortunately, given the state of global economies right now, education isn’t a priority. Governments should realise that the cost of educating the poorest children is far less than the cost of not educating them. Education prevents the spread of disease, improves the efficiency of agriculture, and boosts employability.” Shakira’s popularity could bump the global education issue up the priority list. With Unesco lobbying for quality education for all by 2015, it’s already on the agenda, but could do with the kick, perhaps, that Bono and Geldof gave to the issue of Third-World debt. Is Shakira the next Geldof? It’s clearly something Trevor has considered: “If she isn’t, I don’t know who she is?