Shakira, Schools, Solidarity and the Bare Feet Foundation

Isabel Cristina Mebarak, a.k.a Shakira, doesn’t miss a detail when it comes to the public mega-schools she has been donating to her country over the last 7 years.  Regardless of her tight schedule during her international tours, Shakira finds the time to call frequently to inquire about how things are going, sets construction start and end dates, find financing, suggest changes in the designs and demand that only the best quality materials are used.

Shakira, recently in the news for her romance with Spain's FC Barcelona player Gerard Piqué, is following through on a promise she made when she was younger: to support education in her country and help poor Colombian children have a dignified place to study.  Her involvement is no surprise considering that each school requires a personal investment from the singer of a million dollars each, and 5 of her schools are already open to the public.

Shakira recently arrived to the site of a future school in the San Francisco neighborhood in the Loma del Peyé sector to place the first brick of what will be a new school in an area known for gang fights and other delinquent problems.  She arrived with various body guards and kindly greeted and shook hands before grabbing the first brick and placing it into the cement structure, a symbolic act of the great work that her Bare Feet Foundation (Pies Descalzos) is achieving. Shakira was not alone, among those present were: María Ema Mejía, the Foundation director, Judith Pinedo Flórez, the major of Cartagena, Howard Buffet, the son of mega-rich Warren Buffet who also invested in the project.

Shakira made a short and emotional speech in which she explained that she was happy to lay the first brick that would give life to a school that would not only benefit poor children from Cerro de La Popa but also their parents. She also thanked her friend Howard Buffet for investing in her schools in Cartagena and Barranquilla.  The singer also promised to fund another school in Santa Martha, in the northern Colombia. In addition to her personal investment, her schools are financed by city mayors, government officials and foreign or local investors.

The ceremony also included an interpretation by children from Soledad Román School to Shakira’s famous “Waka-Waka” song.

Before heading off to Panama where Shakira has a concert scheduled, she mentioned her plans to build more schools in Latin America. Specifically Mexico and Brazil, countries that she has visited recently and was affected by the bad conditions in which some of the poor children life.

Of the 5 schools that Shakira has already financed, the first was built in Quibdo, the capital of Chocó.  The school now gives classes to dozens of poor children of African decent that until six years ago studied in terrible conditions. When she visited the school unexpectedly recently, she greeted the students and even danced with them in their classes.  She later visited the public school her foundation built in Barranquilla (her home town), that surprisingly occupies one of the top positions in ICFES National Test results.

These schools are dedicated to children with little financial resources.  The modern schools include bilingual rooms, laboratories, gardens, modern libraries, sports venues, and serve up to 1,500 students (as is the case with the Cartagena school).

The goal? According to Shakira education is the key to improving the conditions in Latin America to improve its position in the future.