Last night Rihanna made history and became the first female artist to receive Harvard University’s prestigious “Humanitarian of the Year” award joining the likes of Martin Luther King and Malala Yousafzai.
The Grammy award winner graciously accepted the award which honoured her charitable contribution to her home country Barbados. In 2012, RiRi set up the ‘Clara Lionel Foundation’ which funds scholarships for students attending college in the U.S from Caribbean countries and became an ambassador for the Global Partnership for Education and The Global Citizen Project; ultimately helping to provide education to children in over 60 developing countries.
During the ceremony Rihanna delivered an inspiring speech in which she explained how her passion for helping others started at a young age; “I would think to myself, ‘I wonder how many 25 cents I could save up to save all the kids in Africa.’ And I would say to myself, ‘When I grow up and I get rich, I’m gonna save kids all over the world.’ I just didn’t know I would be in a position to do that by the time I was a teenager.”
She then went on to encourage the audience to help in whatever way they can; ” What that little girl watching those commercials didn’t know is that you don’t have to be rich to be a humanitarian, you don’t have to be rich to help somebody. You don’t have to be famous; you don’t even have to be college educated. But it starts with your neighbour… you just do whatever you can to help in any way that you can.”
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