Czech media lately started giving more support and space in their broadcasting plans to charities and humanitarian organizations. Newly it starts broadcasting UNICEF “Child survival” campaign from the year 2007, featured by celebrities, which tries to persuade the viewers to donate a certain amount of money to UNICEF foundation.
Celebrities in this Public Service Announcement are so called Good Will Ambassadors. There are three possible ambassador degrees based on the area of their activity. The lowest level is National Ambassador of whom every state in the world has at least one. Second level is Regional Ambassador who manages one of the five world regions. Those are: Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, Latin America, Middle East and North Africa, Eastern and Southern Africa, and Francophone countries. The highest level of participation is to be an International Ambassador. The list of all ambassadors can be find at the official UNICEF websites.
Besides from their original profession, charity is often the activity which takes up the most of celebrity’s time. Donations directly from celebrities are not unusual (some of them are very generous) but still their face often makes more money than they are able or willing to donate. Their media appearance is then incredibly important while representing an organization. For example, when media takes up something negative about the given person, it may affect the total amount of charity’s disposable money due to the possible decline of number of donors. Therefore, the aid performed by this charity is smaller than it would be without its representative being medially scandalized. Media plays a crucial role in determining celebrity’s worthiness and thus are the most influential factor in people’s decision to donate money to an organization.
It is important to help those in need and in this matter celebrities have the power to actually do something for the society. Celebrity example should be followed and their influence in this matter can be extremely positive.
For the complete list of celebrities participating in charity organizations, please visit www.looktothestars.org.
Reference list:
LeMoyne,R. Goodwill Ambassdors. Unicef People. Retrieved December 3, 2008, from http://www.unicef.org/people/people_ambassadors.html
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Hey Vicky!
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I must admit I was extremely moved by the UNICEF video – the situation, living conditions, and life opportunities of those children cannot be more alarming, unfair, and unbalanced, when compared to the lives the children around us, and we do lead.
I think that people in the West usually do not have a clue how hard could a life be (not even me, to the full extent) – their personal problems are subjectively such a big issue for them, even though they are absolutely picayune when compared to the problems of the people in the 3rd world countries and elsewhere. Thus, we should far more appreciate what we have and use our resources, both the intellectual and the material ones, to take the right action, to participate, to help.
Finally I would like to draw attention to other famous celebrities involved, such as Angelina Jolie, Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF, or Czech model Tereza Maxova and her Foundation (new campaigns “Teribear” and “Ztratil/a se,” which can be seen at posters and citylights all around Prague) – for more information have a look at www.nadacetm.cz.
So I would like to ask you: What do you think about these celebrity foundations? Are they helpful and trustworthy or is it just a money black hole?
NB: I absolutely love both versions of the “5 Friends” video and I consider it one of the best, most elaborate and most influential celebrity PSA ever produced. Thank you for your blog!