Bono & Ali Hewson Charities

The emergence and refinement of social media could be one of the greatest and quietest cultural revolutions in history.
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Where you are born should not determine if you are more or less human.
Separation is man made.Help us end it www.one.org
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The argument on who is most right in faith is pointless.
The core is shared: we are to love. So love
It’s too often. We confuse “planning” with “doing”.
Great movements begin with foolish and clumsy fist steps. Begin.?
Big changes come from small steps.
Mother Teresa was asked “How can you save a world from hunger?”
she said “1 person at a time.”
Didn’t you know? It’s always falling apart.
That’s why, in love, you take nothing for granted and keep building it up.

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Make mistakes, there’s nothing wrong with trying.
Real faith doesn’t try to control other people.
Those who let fear rule them want you to be scared as well.
Don’t listen to them. Be brave. Live a life that inspires.?
the opposite of faith is fear.?
Why blame others for the problem you see?
Stop, get up, and fix it. Take accoutability.
Lead. Please, you are needed!
It’s stasis that kills you off in the end, not ambition.?

History, like God, is watching what we do.?
If you’re scared,
you’re going to find every reason to not do what you know you need to do.
With faith, you just do it.It’s not knowing the answers that really matters, it’s knowing the right questions to ask.?
I know nothing lasts forever.
Yet every time I’m reminded,
my heart breaks.
Mr.Jackson, you will be missed.
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You can’t figure it out.
It’s not in a rule book.
It’s found by diving in.
So let go.
You’ll find more when you do.?
Where you are born should not determine if you are more or less human.
Separation is man made.
Help us end it
www.one.org?
Loneliness is a sickness we all fight.
It says,
“no one cares, you are nothing, and this is pointless”
Don’t listen to it?
Not one day is made better in your life by holding the mistakes of others against them.
Want world peace?
Give grace.?
It’s not knowing the answers that really matters,
it’s knowing the right questions to ask.
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Politics – Published Monday, 19 October 2009 06:26 | Author: AFP / The Swedish Wire
Bono: Obama deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize?
www.swedishwire.com/politics/1295-bono-obama-deserving-of-the-nobel-peace-prize
“I will venture to say that in the farthest corners of the globe, the president’s words are more than a pop song people want to hear on the radio. They are lifelines,” he said.
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The world wants to believe in America again because the world needs to believe in America again.
We need your ideas.
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Nov 2nd, 2009?25th ANNIVERSARY ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME?
www.universal-music.co.jp/u-pop/artist/u2/news/index.html#091216
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Time waits for none of us.
There isn’t a later.
If you see a change that needs to be made, do it now.
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Nov 15th, 2009 Berlin, Brandenburg Gate?
http://ro69.jp/news/detail/27346
set-list
Grafton Street Christmas Eve 2009,
Glen Hansard, Damien Rice, Mundy, Liam O Maonlai and Bono busking in aid of Simon Community
http://ro69.jp/blog/nakamura/29210
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What are you hoping for most this year?
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Some thoughts I’d like to share.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/opinion/03bono.html
What are your thoughts?
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Forgive . . .
Not one life, one minute,
or one second has been made better by holding a grudge.
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Hope for Haiti Now. 01-22-10.
http://tinyurl.com/h4haiti
www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=258850998043&ref=mf
#HopeforHaiti
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every penny, any effort, anything at all is better than nothing.

Africa needs trade more than it needs aid from celebrities in the West

Bono, U2 lead singer and co-founder of The ONE Campaign and Product (RED), is shown in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, with Eusebia Chilipwele, a former nurse and grandmother who now volunteers full-time providing home-based care to adults and orphans living with HIV/AIDS. Does celebrity activism in Africa really contribute to a growing middle class?

Rapport Press/Newscom/File

Sir Bob Geldof and Lord Bono can take the day off from their quest to eliminate African poverty today. A new report by the African Development Bank (PDF) shows that the African middle class is growing at a unprecedented rate, with almost 35% of Africa’s population now being considered middle-class – an increase of almost 10% over the last thirty years. Measurements of living conditions are up across the board: electricity consumption has almost tripled since 1985, as has the continent’s petroleum consumption. Although certain states in Africa, such as Liberia, continue to suffer from abject poverty, things are on the whole looking up.

Have the efforts of Elton John, Sting, Paul McCartney and other celebs finally started to pay off? Well, probably not – the report is distinctly lacking in references to celebrity activism. Instead, it says that the growth of this middle-class is due to social-economic opportunities provided by the private sector. Indeed, economic growth and an embryonic entrepreneurial spirit has led to formerly unheard-of levels of prosperity for many Africans who, instead of subsisting beneath the poverty line, are increasingly buying fridges, cars and televisions.

Sir Bob might argue that these changes were initially brought about by the West’s aid generosity. Apparently not, as the report again states that macroeconomic policy changes are to thank for this upturn. In contract, over the last fifty years Africa gained little from $500,000,000,000 worth of poorly-structured aid that only encouraged aid-dependency.

Overwhelmingly, Africa needs trade, not aid. Trade was one of the key factors in the economic prosperity of the western world, and it can do the same in Africa. The current situation, however, denies Africa vital trading opportunities. The CAP impoverishes Africa. By having huge barriers to Europe’s agricultural produce market, and therefore denying Africa the ability to trade in what they have a comparative advantage in, the CAP is plainly a raw deal. (Not to mention the fact that the CAP also costs each UK household £398 annually (PDF).)

While serious challenges no doubt lay ahead for Africa, notably HIV and its potentially devastating demographic impact, the route to Africa’s long-overdue development is free trade, not another evening of banal comedy sketches, regardless of their benevolent intent. The current situation benefits only a small number of over-subsidised farmers, to the detriment of everybody else.

Source: The Christian Science Monitor

3. BONO
Has a celebrity ever accumulated more political influence than Bono? No one has ever really come close. The lead singer for the Irish band U2 (born Paul Hewson) has made himself the fulcrum of an extraordinary global network of political leaders, philanthropists, development experts, and celebrities dedicated to relieving poverty in the developing world, particularly Africa. With his religious bent, Bono once sang about the day “when all the colors will bleed into one,” and he sometimes seems to personally embody that convergence: He mingles as easily with heads of state onstage at Davos as he does with Bruce Springsteen at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and he can sling M.B.A.-speak about reform and responsibility in poor countries as fluently as the language of Christian obligation to the needy.
Bono has demonstrated tenacity, persistence, and extraordinary political dexterity in building alliances not only with left-of-center American political figures such as Bill Clinton and Bill Gates but with George W. Bush and Jesse Helms, the late archconservative senator from North Carolina, who Bono bonded with in discussion over Scripture and persuaded to attend a U2 concert. “When Bono embraced Bush, that pissed a lot of people off because in the past there were a lot of celebrities who said, ‘I won’t even go to the White House,’ while George Bush was president, and he said that was ridiculous,” said Lara Bergthold, who helps match Hollywood luminaries with liberal causes. “But you would have to say Bono was right. Debt relief in Africa was such an obscure issue that no one cared about, and [it] is now on the agenda. He made it a sexy issue, and he made a case for it in Republican chambers that was effective, a Christian argument.”
Such shrewd political maneuvering helps explain why Bono topped the list of both National Journal’s Republican and Democratic Political Insiders as the most effective celebrity advocate in Washington. “Anyone who could make Jesse Helms cry and then attend a U2 concert is an effective lobbyist,” said one Republican. “He literally put Africa on the map for a generation of Democrats and Republicans,” a Democrat agreed. Bono not only raised consciousness about his issues—poverty and health needs in Africa—but has changed the way that celebrities interact with politicians and issues. More than any single figure, he’s responsible for the tilt of celebrity activism toward poverty in the developing world; the increased emphasis on direct action as a complement to government lobbying; and attention to building institutions (such as the ONE campaign he cofounded to mobilize public support for African aid in the United States). And he has done all this while usually maintaining a wry sense of irony about his own privileged life; only occasionally straining his audience’s tolerance for sermons; and emphasizing outreach over confrontation with virtually everyone he interacts with. “He calls on everyone to be their best,” actor George Clooney once told The New York Times. “If you fall short, you feel embarrassed. That’s the unique thing. And we all want to be that person.”

Check the full list HERE

Source: National Journal

The friendship between the former footballer Ronaldo and Bono of U2 during his stay in Brazil generated good results.

The newspaper “Folha de Sao Paulo” reported that the singer will donate one of the guitars he used in U2′s presentations in Sao Paulo (April 9, 10 and 13) to the Criando Fenômenos foundation, created by Ronaldo to help children.

Source: EGO

It’s debatable whether fashion can really provide an effective platform for social change. Still, for the past 6 years, Ali Hewson has made it her business to create clothes that will make a difference. And while most fashion brands aim simply to make the wearer look and feel good, the Edun label, which Hewson started with her husband, U2 frontman Bono, was created with a loftier manifesto in mind: to encourage sustainable trade with Africa. The Dublin-born childhood sweethearts (who started dating when Hewson was just 14) are the parents of four children and have long campaigned against poverty. Their initial concept for Edun was completely idealistic. It was going to be one of the world’s first ethically and environmentally conscious fashion brands, all the materials were going to be organic and there would be employment opportunities for locals. But a few years later, after Hewson, Bono, and their partner, designer Rogan Gregory, had invested millions of their own money, Edun was in enormous debt and owed its shareholders a small fortune. In 2009, powerful luxury goods conglomerate LVMH came to the rescue, buying almost 50 per cent of the company. Now, with new designer Sharon Wauchob on board, and an expanded range of styles and fabrications, the company is poised to not only benefit Africa, but hopefully finally turn a profit. I caught up with Hewson at Holt Renfrew in Toronto a couple of weeks before her recent fiftieth birthday to talk about all that she’s been trying to accomplish in the name of love.
JEANNE BEKER
From Saturday’s Globe and Mail
Published Saturday, Apr. 09, 2011 12:00AM EDT

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