Shakira, Alejandro Sanz Plead To Help Poor Children

Latin singers Shakira and Alejandro Sanz urged the presidents of Mexico, Argentina, El Salvador, Panama and Paraguay on Wednesday to reach a regional accord to help poor children in Latin America.

Representing the Panama-based ALAS foundation, which works toward improving the education, health and nutrition of children up to six years old, Shakira warned that more than 50 percent of children in the region lack any kind of preschool learning or stimulation and never have a chance to escape poverty.

“He who is born poor dies poor” in her native Colombia, Shakira said, “and that must change.”

About 32 million children are born into poverty in Latin America, according to ALAS, and lack the necessary education, stimulation and nourishment to develop properly.

The singers asked the presidents to adopt an agreement on combatting child poverty during the upcoming Iberoamerican Summit in late October.

“I promised Shakira that in the next summit, which is in El Salvador, we will work on the topic,” Salvadoran President Tony Saca told a crowd of 1,000 at Colombia University in New York, where the presidents are visiting for the United Nations General Assembly.

The five leaders spoke of child poverty in their countries and expressed interest in the project - as well as admiration for the artists’ work through ALAS.

Dominican slugger Sammy Sosa, Panamanian musician Ruben Blades and English rocker Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame were also on hand, along with Nobel Prize-winning economist James J. Heckman and Luis Alberto Moreno, president of the Inter-American Development Bank.

ALAS was created in 2006 as an initiative by Shakira, Sanz and Spanish singer Miguel Bose. It is supported by Nobel Prize-winning novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Mexican business mogul Carlos Slim.

Source: CBS News