Lomas de Peye residents used to fear that a strong gust of wind from the Caribbean would be enough to knock down their school. Then singer Shakira came to their aid.
The pop superstar recently traveled to this shanty town in Cartagena, on Colombia’s northern coastline, to inaugurate a new 8,000m2 brick school paid for through her charity foundation.
The US$10 million school, built with funds from local and international donors and Shakira’s own money, includes a football field and enough classrooms for 1,700 students.
“Besides being a school, it is a center for community development, where we dream that at least 5,000 people can come for informal programs, sports, art, or just a gathering space,” said Patricia Sierra, director of Shakira’s charity the Shoeless Foundation.
Shakira, born Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll in 1977 in the Caribbean city of Barranquilla, now lives abroad with Spanish football star Gerard Pique and rarely visits Colombia.
The new school is the sixth built by Shakira’s foundation in Colombia, a country wracked by drug violence and a lengthy civil war.
Children lined the neighborhood’s unpaved roads and stood in front of their humble wooden homes as they welcomed the singer, who arrived with her one-year-old son Milan in her arms.
“It gives me great joy to know that in this space you will have the necessary tools to become good citizens,” Shakira told the future students.
Then, in a nod to the government officials at the event, she said: “Education is not a luxury, it’s a right that society should protect and the state has a definite obligation to protect.”
Wearing the school uniform, 14-year-old Jorge Eliecer Garrido welcomed the singer and thanked her for the new school.
“Now that she’s made it big, she has the heart of a child because she feels what we feel,” he said.
Lady Zuniga, an elderly woman, said locals worried about the children’s safety in the old school, where her grandchildren studied.
“A strong wind would hit it, and we were afraid that it would knock over the building,” Zuniga said.
Shakira has long been interested in helping young people.
“At the age of six she told her mother: ‘I know that I came into the world for a mission,’” Shakira’s father, William Mebarak, said.
“Two, three, four years went by and then she said: ‘I know what my mission is: the children,’” Mebarak said.
In 1997 Shakira began the Shoeless Foundation charity, and she has since taken a hands-on role in the group.
For some residents, the new school not only represents hope for social improvement, but also an urban renewal project that will help cut down on crime.
“This neighborhood used to have a bad reputation. Very few people would dare to visit,” said Eduis Coneo Vergara, who lives in front of the new school.
“The access routes have been improved. There is now an increase in people who come here because they see that it is easier to come up and is a lot safer,” Vergara said.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not