Celebrities and Philanthropy

4 comments

Posted by Lu Yang on Nov 5, 2010 in Service Scholars | 4 comments

Celebrities and Philanthropy

Having received the overarching theme of this month “Turning an Idea into Action”, I was thinking that there are already many organizations around us contributing to the society directly in one form or another. One form of these organizations is foundations that are founded by celebrities. Celebrities, whether tycoons or movie stars, have a great influence on the public because they often serve as role models to many people, so it’s essential that we apply the social influence of celebrities to our social work.

As far as I know, many movie stars and pop singers have initiated foundations of their own in China. Jackie Chan, the well-known Hong Kong actor and martial artist, founded the Jackie Chan Charitable Foundation in 1988 and the Dragon’s Heart Foundation in 2005. While the Jackie Chan Charitable Foundation mainly benefits Hong Kong people and organizations, the Dragon’s Heart Foundation reaches out its scope to facilitate educational opportunities in remote areas of China. In October of 2009, Jackie Chan devoted one million yuan(renminbi) to enlarging a primary school in rural Hebei Province. It is the 23rd Dragon’s Heart Primary School that his foundation has built in mainland China. Moreover, in January of 2010, he devoted five million yuan to the families of victims in Haiti Earthquake and the peacekeeping troops there.

Faye Wong, who is considered by many people as the diva of Chinese popular music, set up the Smile Angel(Yanran) Foundation in 2006. This foundation is named after her daughter Yan who was born with severe cleft palate. The foundation was set up to help cover the treatment expenses of surgery for infants inflicted with cleft palate. Yapeng Li, the husband of Faye Wong, is also a famous actor in mainland China. The couple holds annual fundraising gala dinners for their foundation and invite their friends, most of whom are also stars. This usually becomes a hot topic in the following day’s newspapers and websites.

Jackie Chan and Faye Wong have spent more than decades in their performing career, so they have a far-reaching influence on other performers and stars, and thus their foundations have a profound impact on the wilder community. Both of them have been named as the leading philanthropy artists in China.

Young artists have also shown great interest in philanthropy. Christine Fan and her fiancé Blackie Chen Chien-chou initiated a project called “I Love Life”.  They collaborate with a fashion brand Outerspace-Fever to carry out a uniquely-designed T-shirt for “I Love Life”. The proceedings of the T-shirt sales go to help young patients cover treatment expenses. Since they are loved by many youth, I believe this project has increased the youth’s awareness of social welfare issues. “I Love Life” has invited lots of pop stars to wear the T-shirt and say “I Love Life” in the public awareness advertising video. This has been criticized by some media as using the fame of celebrities to sell T-shirts rather than actually do good to the public. But beneficiaries of the project have publicly supported “I Love Life” and they really appreciate what the project has done.

I love life and I believe such foundations and projects are truly beneficial to the society.

Sources:

http://jackiechan.com/charity

http://gongyi.qq.com/a/20100427/000108.htm   （in Chinese）

Lu Yang

Team 5: International Health

Northampton, MA

Smith College Sophomore

About the author

Lu Yang Lu Yang, 20, Smith College, Northampton, MA – I first learned about East Villagers from Technology & Education: Connecting Cultures (TECC) Smith Chapter since EV offers us fundings. I’ve learned that EV is a non-profit organization that generously offers fundings and support for community services, and I am amazed to see there is the existence of such mature non-profit org around me. However, as a full-time college student, I cannot make time commitment to off-campus community services. As soon as I saw the EV Service Scholar Intern which would enable me to contribute to the society online and at home ease, I know EV Intern is the right job for me. I hope to meet different service scholars who hold the same beliefs about the world with me, and I hope everybody in this program to be inspired and inspire others at the same time.

4 Responses to “Celebrities and Philanthropy”

  1. Ashley says:
    November 9, 2010 at 6:51 pm

    Surgeries for many young children are need. <a href= http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Smile-Train-Helping-Children-With-Cleft-Lips smile train Check out Smile Train to learn how and why they fix cleft palate issues for free!

    reply
  2. Ohana Media says:
    November 10, 2010 at 4:51 am

    Celebrity fundraising campaigns are often very successful and also helps to highlight these issues. Unfortunately, such euphoria is often short-lived.

    reply
    • Lu Yang says:
      November 10, 2010 at 10:17 am

      Yes that’s true. I believe that to some extent, perhaps the more well-known the celebrities are, the longer the foundation’s life is. Though some of the foundations are short-lived, many more others are set up. I think what we need to do is to focus on the transition and take over the work from the previous organizations to the newly-founded ones.

      reply
  3. Cecilia says:
    December 1, 2010 at 8:33 pm

    Operation Smile Train is one organization that puts every penny donated to use to transform the life of a deserving child.
    href=http://www.squidoo.com/smiletrain

    reply

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