Clooney and Cowell raise money for Haiti

by Juliana Oladipo

Everybody criticises that celebrities love the spotlight and after the devastating earthquake that tore through Haiti last month, nobody can deny them their right to shine as they have come out in full to raise money for the displaced victims.

Fortunately this has not been a publicity stunt and as celebrities from over the pond are digging deep to help the cause, it was only a matter of time before us Brits – did what we do best – and signed up some pop heavy weights to release a single in the name of charity.

Taken over from the likes of Sir Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, who over twenty years before arranged a celebrity recording of Do They Know It’s Christmas  to raise money for the Ethiopian famine in 1984, multi-millionaire music mogul, Simon Cowell is set to do the same for Haiti.

Chart-toppers Robbie Williams, Jon Bon Jovi, and Cheryl Cole are part of a large number of stars that have been lined up by TV’s Mr Nasty to record a charity single of the REM classic Everybody Hurts.

The single, is set to be released this weekend and REM frontman Micheal Stipe is rumored to be waiving his royalty rights.

Hollywood's elite

King of charity fundraisers, George Clooney also helped to raise millions for the poverty stricken country by organising Telathon Hope For Haiti Now, which saw Hollywood's elite taking donations via the telephone from "ordinary" citizens.

The show was broadcast live on MTV and YouTube and viewers were entertained by performances from none the queen of pop Madonna, rock legends Bruce Springsteen and Sheryl Crow and publicity shy Chris Martin who played the piano alongside the bootylicious Beyonce.

Other stars involved on the night were Christina Agulilera, Mary J Blige, Steven Speilberg, Jack Nicholson, Keith Urban and many others.

Clooney - who has organized events like this twice before - has helped to raise over $50 million in the aftermath of the event which is the most amount of money ever to be made from a telathon and will benefit the earthquake victims.

The money is said to be split between five different charities working for the relief efforts.

Natural disasters

Sadly, hearing terrifying news about natural disasters that kill hundreds and thousands of people is not a rare thing. The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake killed 230, 000 people and the Sichuan earthquake in China took the lives of 69,197 in 2008.

Though nothing can separate these disasters in terms of devastation, what makes Haiti’s situation even more frightening is the fact that it is the poorest country in the western hemisphere.

With most Haitians living on only $2 a day, only 50 per cent of the people there are literate.

You don’t have to have the bank balance of a celebrity to help.

As well as raising money through university bake sales and sponsors, Unicef are taking minimal, one-off payments online to help with releif efforts.

ore more information visit www.unicef.org.uk