Kanye inadvertently supports Kenya

I woke up yesterday morning to my neighbour's voice emanating from my clock radio. He was being interviewed on Edmonton a.m. because of Kanye West. It was surprising, to say the least.

I don't know much about Kanye West, really, other than that he's a Grammy award-winning rapper who is married to one of the Kardashian girls that I often see on the cover of magazines at the grocery checkout. It seems Kanye's pretty good at putting his foot in his mouth on a fairly regular basis, and his latest escapade will hopefully benefit the non-governmental charitable organization being run by my neighbour Todd and friends.

Kanye West seemed to be in some financial trouble, 53 million dollars worth, so he was appealing to his fans on Twitter for help, and one of his remarks made it sound like investing in Kanye was better than investing in charities helping people in Africa. That ticked off a Kanye fan in Florida, who set up a website called Help Kenya Not Kanye. It lists ten charities that supply things like food, clothing, HIV kits, and school supplies to people in various places in Kenya. The fifth charity mentioned, under the heading "Famine > Fashion," suggests that for the price of one of Kanye West's $700 designer sweatshirts, donors to One Child's Village can feed a school of 200 orphans and ten teachers for a whole month! Sounds like a much better deal than an overpriced sweatshirt! (Of course, people don't have to donate $700 -- any amount is appreciated!)

Our new neighbour moved in next door last spring, after our dear elderly neighbour, Olga, moved into an assisted-living senior's residence. We don't know Tod very well yet, but I do know that he's the kind of guy who gives his annual garage sale proceeds to One Child's Village, and does a lot of other good work for the organization, helping with various events and fundraisers and overseeing its work.

I would love to see the charity get a real boost from a Kanye's narcissism (he later admitted that he is personally wealthy but wants to use other people's money to fund his next recording), so I share this story here. Kanye, I'm not your fan, so you'll never get any of my money, but I just gave a donation to One Child's Village. I suspect Todd is appreciating the inadvertent support your tweet is giving his cause!

If you are looking for a way to directly benefit Aids orphans in Africa, check out the links above, and check out the video below that was posted on YouTube a few years back...

We in the western world don't realize how far the price of a coffee or a large pizza can go... and Kanye West certainly doesn't need our support as much as our orphaned African sisters and brothers do!