Shakira for Presdent--I have NO doubt it will happen someday...

I have a bold prediction: Shakira will be Presdent of Columbia someday...I have read other things about her from time to time and am impressed with how she runs her business, her seriousness in her causes and relative humbleness (perhaps the thing I MOST respect)...This article and selected comments (VIA Aidwatch) illustrate what I think MORE celebrities should model...

(1) Shakira is concentrating on a place she knows well — her native coastal Colombia, including her hometown of Barranquilla. Points for local knowledge compared to Africa-touring celebrities who wouldn’t know a fufu stick from a groundnut. When she visits her projects, she’s visiting people she knows.

(2) She’s starting to work with impoverished Latino kids in the US — another group she knows well from her own life experience. More points for local knowledge.

(3) she’s focusing on primary and secondary education, which apparently she again feels strongly about from her own experience. Points for specialization.
Shakira’s latest contribution went to our hometown. In February 2009, the Barefoot Foundation inaugurated a $6 million K-12 mega-school. El colegio de Shakira, as it is known locally, gets only praise. A friend described it to me as an American institution, by which she meant state-of-the-art. The complex includes an auditorium, chemistry labs and even air conditioning. “Parents receive English classes and computer skills,” Shakira says, “and the entire neighborhood can play soccer there.” Families look for every possible way to move close to the school.