24054: Slavin: (News) hip-hop star starts scholarship program (Herald 011205) (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JPS390@aol.com

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/haiti/10622474.htm

Posted on Wed, Jan. 12, 2005

SCHOLARSHIPS
In Haiti slum, hip-hop star starts scholarship program
Artist Wyclef Jean visited his native Haiti and inaugurated a scholarship program that strives to help kids stay in school.

Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE - Dozens of Haitian youths mobbed hip-hop star Wyclef Jean as he visited a slum Tuesday to inaugurate a program to support education in his impoverished native country.

The kids watched the former Fugees rapper perform an impromptu rendition of his new song, Gonaives, atop a truck in a soccer field in Cite Soleil, a seaside slum outside the capital of Port-au-Prince. They ran after him as he hopped on a small bicycle and rode around the field.

Jean, whose 1997 solo hit We Trying to Stay Alive was about Haitian slums, was visiting the L'Athletique d'Haiti Sports Academy, an after-school program in Cite Soleil that provides tutoring and sports training for 650 youths. He inaugurated an initiative to provide scholarships to help new participants stay in school, a requirement for the after-school program.

Free schools are rare in Haiti, and many families cannot afford tuition. Among the those mobbing Jean were 25 kids who have already received ''Wyclef scholarships'' with a grant of $23,800.

At least 100 more scholarships will be awarded in the first initiative by Yele Haiti, Jean's new foundation.

''What Sammy Sosa has done for the Dominican Republic, that's what I think I can do for Haiti,'' Jean said, referring to the Dominican-born baseball star who founded a charity for health in education in his country.

Yele Haiti is also planning a program to provide scholarships for 4,000 children in the northern city of Gonaives where floods killed more than 2,000 people in September. It also will rebuild 20 damaged schools.

ComCel, Haiti's largest mobile-phone provider, is funding the projects, pledging $500,000 for the first year, said Bernard Fils-Aime, the company's secretary-general.

© 2005 Herald.com and wire service sources.

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J.P. Slavin
New York
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