A social media star has taken his fame and is changing the world.
On March 15, French vine star Jerome Jarre posted a video about saying he got the idea for the campaign after a volunteer in Somalia told Jarre about an experience he had witnessing someone die of dehydration. Jarre had 8 million followers on Vine and Snapchat. Now he has 1.4 million on twitter and 1.8 million on Instagram. His following is increasing exponentially since the video was posted
The campaign started with the hashtag #TurkishAirlinesHelpSomalia. Jarre said in his two minute long video “The movement started with a crazy idea, what if we could convince Turkish Airlines to let us use one of their flights to Somalia? And fill it with food!”.
As the video began to go viral it attracted many other celebrities, like 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and Ben Stiller. The celebrities not only helped the cause with their own popularity and fan base but used their money to donate.
Stiller is letting Jarre use his foundation Stiller Foundation to help manage the funds. As well as helping with the funds, the donation will also give you a tax deduction.
After causing so much buzz in the Twitter world, the Turkish airline agreed to send the flight, but they also agreed to continue flying food until the famine has ended
Jarre started a Gofundme for the campaign called love army for Somalia. As of right now the Gofundme has raised $2,571,050 in two months. Since first posting the video they realize that instead of buying food from another country and flying it in. It’d be much cheaper and more helpful to the Somali economy to buy the food locally.
According to a video posted on Jarre’s twitter page on May 4, the charity has already donated 400 tons of food.
Its quite sad that the government or the media hasn’t helped the Somalian people. According to CNN there is 6 million people without food. That’s more than half the countries population. These people are being neglected by the rest of the world. The only people attempting to bring awareness to the situation is Jarre and Stiller. They are making a difference to these people.
Recently, Somali Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire announced that 110 people had died from starvation and dehydration.
So, if you have the funds and the chance to donate, please do. The livelihood of the Somali people depends on us and our kindness.
