Madonna's Plan to Build Malawi School Falls Apart

By Christine Fenno Posted Mar 26th 2011 10:12AM

A charity launched by Madonna is floundering after nearly $4 million was spent, with little to show for it, on plans to build a school in the impoverished African nation of Malawi.

Madonna has made regular visits to the country for her Raising Malawi foundation, to which she gave $11 million; she also adopted her youngest children David and Mercy in Malawi.

But now, the pop star's dream of building a $15 million school to educate approximately 400 girls has officially collapsed, according to the New York Times.

"A thoughtful decision has been made to discontinue plans for the Raising Malawi Academy for Girls, as it was originally conceived," Michael Berg said Thursday in an email to donors who supported the project. Berg is co-director of Los Angeles' Kabbalah Centre, and co-founder of Raising Malawi.

The foundation's board of directors has been replaced by Madonna and her manager, who join a newly formed "caretaker board."

Concerns of financial mismanagement arose in recent months. Cars, golf memberships, and a chauffeur for the school's director were described by auditors as "outlandish" wastes of money.

In a statement Thursday, Madonna said: "There's a real education crisis in Malawi....67 percent of girls don't go to secondary school, and this is simply unacceptable. Our team is going to work hard to address this in every way we can." In acknowledgment of her charity's failings, she said, "I'm frustrated that our education work has not moved forward in a faster way."

Government authorities in Malawi already displaced hundreds of locals from Chinkhota village, near the capitol city of Lilongwe, to accommodate construction of the school. Madonna's camp has yet to explain why she failed to act earlier on the crisis within her organization, which has raised $18 million so far. The Times was told Madonna was directing a movie about British royals, and therefore unavailable for an interview about the latest Raising Malawi news.

Meanwhile, the charity insists that Raising Malawi will not disband, but will redirect how it uses funds to help the poor in Malawi.

The Global Philanthropy Group says it advised Madonna months ago that millions were being ineffectively spent by her charity, and suggested she finance existing education programs instead of trying to launch a new school.

Trevor Neilson of the Global Philanthropy Group studied Raising Malawi's mistakes and told the Times, "Despite $3.8 million having been spent....the project has not broken ground, there was no title to the land and there was, over all, a startling lack of accountability on the part of the management team in Malawi and the management team in the United States." He added, "We have yet to determine exactly what happened to all of that $3.8 million. We have not accounted for all the funds that were used."

Tags: madonna, malawi

Comments

(50)

Sunday 27 March

By SAM

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Actually, Alan, it is floundering. Look it up in a dictionary. Floundering means to proceed or act clumsily or ineffectually. Which is exactly what has happened. Foundering refers to a disease of a horse's foot. Which one do you think it should be?

By diana

Tracy Anderson has not dated Phillippe vandeBossche for over a year and she is not the director of the foundation-FACT CHECK!!!!!

By MJJ

Madonna, you might want to watch the movie: "Out of Africa" before attempting this type of philanthropy. Changing the long entrenched nature and/or philosophy of a people is not an easy task. You better be prepared for a lot of push-back and regression. Nature (especially Human Nature) doesn't just bend your way because you have money, a good idea or because you want to help someone. YOU must control it, or IT will control you. Good Luck!

By Dennis

Hey how about spending some money on your own race, you know the people who made you what you are

By ron paul

Madonna is a hollywood twit. Twits get taken by wolves...with a smile. She will never miss the 3.8 million but a dozen scammers are quite happy

By Dave

Typical. The Hollyweird Glitterati seems to be convinced that all one has to do is throw money towards their own particular "pet cause", without diligent oversight, and all will MAGICALLY be transformed into a Disney-esque, happily ever after situation. ESPECIALLY in Africa, where graft, corruption and wholsale theft of charitable aid from ANY source seems to almost be part of the culture. The same thing happened with Oprahs pet cause in S. Africa. What's wrong with spreading some of their wealth in the U.S.?

By marsha

I am concerned about all the poor people who were displaced from their homes for this building of this school? Can they have their land back or will someone relocate them on Madonna's dollar? I am sure they did not move voluntarily or were paid for thei meager land. Just wondering ?

Monday 28 March

By janet

Why didn't Madonna contact Oprah about her experience of opening a school? I wish they would spend their money here in the US!

By Annetta

Why doesn't Madonna just go away and shut up.

By pommy

while donating this millions of dollars to other countries must be for tax purposes, tax shelters VS. helping make AMerica grow.

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