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ALICIA – musician on a mission

Award-winning R&B artist Alicia Keys talks to Network News about why she could not ignore the devastation in Africa caused by AIDS and her determination to Keep A Child Alive.

Alicia Keys is best known for her phenomenal, global success as an R&B artist, her inimitable style and her record-breaking collection of Grammys. Perhaps less well known is her dedication to her charity Keep A Child Alive (KCA) which she co-founded in 2002 as an urgent response to the AIDS pandemic ravaging Africa.

With over 13 million orphans in Africa alone, created by HIV AIDS related deaths, Alicia formed KCA and in her additional role as Global Ambassador she tours Africa regularly to raise awareness, holds star-studded charity balls to fundraise and generally promotes the cause of combating the devastation caused by HIV AIDS in Africa and around the world.

The charity offers people the opportunity to provide lifesaving antiretroviral (ARV) medicine and support services directly to children and families with HIV/AIDS in some of the world’s poorest countries.

Network News: What first motivated you to set up (co- found) the Keep a Child Alive campaign?
Alicia Keys: I was totally moved when I went to South Africa and saw the social devastation there caused by AIDS. It seemed like a whole generation was being wiped out. I couldn’t come back to the US and do nothing. I had to do something! Leigh Blake and I decided, even though it seemed impossible at the time, to create an organisation that provided the life-saving AIDS drugs needed to keep children and families alive, and happy.

NN: Can you describe the main objectives of the campaign and what kind of work is involved?
AK: It provides the medicine known as ARVs to children and families to keep them alive. It’s crazy because here in the West we’re able to access this medicine, and it’s turned AIDS into a treatable disease that you could live with. But millions and millions of Africans die unnecessarily, so that’s what we do – we provide the medicine and we also help to care for some of the countless orphans that AIDS has created. AIDS has also created an economic and spiritual devastation in Africa, but it doesn’t have to be like that if we could all just share our wealth. I know that not everybody can go to Africa, so I thought I’m gonna bring Africa to you.

NN: Can you describe some of the highlights of your involvement in the campaign?
AK: The Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital is special for me because this was one of the first places, when I came to South Africa, that I saw with my own two eyes and it really changed my whole perspective. I was just beginning to learn the spectrum of the AIDS pandemic and I remember this one particular woman came up to me and she looked at me as if I had all the answers. I felt overwhelmed and said, “What do you need?” She replied, “medicine, we can’t get the medicine.” That moment right there was what really opened my eyes. The way she looked at me, the way her eyes implored me to do something, as if I could change the whole situation. At that moment I didn’t know if I could, you know help, but I knew that I had to do something. Coming back to the same hospital really propelled me to get involved, and made me want to use my voice, to say something and be their voice.

NN: Have you travelled much to Africa and any other countries with the campaign and what were your impressions?
AK: I have been to South Africa, Uganda and Kenya, and I cannot wait to go to Mali, Rwanda and India too. There are so many poignant stories to tell. Meeting one child, Sudi, who died a week after we met was very, very hard for me. It reminded me how critical it is to get ARVs to children as young as possible. Meeting the kids at Ikageng Ministries in Soweto blew my mind. They are so strong and resilient, some of the most inspirational people I have ever met. We are all part of the same human family. I truly believe that. Everything began there. The scale of this human tragedy is outrageous and it’s being perpetrated on some of the most amazing people you could ever know. Just like I care about what happens to my mother or anyone in my family, so we should all care about each other.

NN: Do you think that musicians generally should try to be socially responsible in their actions and behaviour, especially those who have young fans? Should politics and art mix?
AK: Yes. It gives voice to many issues that need to be discussed. Protest songs have changed the world, films can give issues a huge audience, and art can convey what cannot be said in words. I also think that our world would be full of mad women and men without art.

NN: What are your plans and hope for the KCA in the future?
AK: My main objective is to bring the word of what’s going on to the global public and I really am standing strongly behind that. The issue at hand is so huge, it’s so big but I do have faith and one thing that I see everywhere I go, is that the belief in God is so strong and it reminds me how important that is.
We intend to continue our work educating the public about the issue in our way, which is very direct and very modern. In the UK we had an amazing Black Ball recently with Annie Lennox, Adele, Jennifer Hudson, the Marleys and Emmanuel Jal and we intend to repeat it annually to raise our profile. We also have a big campaign that is being created for the UK which you will see shortly – again trying to get people involved to donate

NN: What would be your core message to the world on issues of HIV and AIDS be?
AK: HIV is the same age as me. It has been around since I was born. My generation has had a plastic sex life, that’s if they practice safe sex, which many of them don’t – but should. It’s the most important issue of our generation.
I want to say, I urge everyone to think about what you are spending your money on and how rewarding it would be to spend twenty pounds a month on a child’s life instead. Visit www.keepachildalive.org to find out how. Thank you so much.

NN: What is your greatest achievement
to date?
AK: KCA is currently providing funding to 14 clinical and orphan care sites in countries such as Kenya, Mali, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe; with past funding of additional projects in Ethiopia, Kenya and South Africa and recently KCA expanded its work to India.

NN: What is your favourite motto for life?
AK: The rules that I live by are, that I try to show respect to people. I have learned in my travels that we are basically the same. Material things don’t mean anything. Family, love and compassion are everything.