Diaspora Dazzler: Alicia Keys

((  Written By: Staff Writer  ))  While Alicia Keys promotes her new album, Girl On Fire (which has been on heavy rotation on MIMI's playlist since its release last week), we are inspired to launch MIMI's Diaspora Dazzler column and recognize women, who like Alicia are not connected to a particular African country, but who are devoted to representing the continent's Soul.Substance.Style.

. . .  

14-time Grammy Award winner, actress, singer, songwriter, music producer, and entrepreneur, Alicia Keys is a powerful force in the global fight against HIV/AIDS.  In 2003 Alicia Keys and Leigh Blake, longtime AIDS activist and film/TV producer, co-founded Keep a Child Alive, a people’s movement that provides life-saving AIDS medicine and surrounding care to children and families in Africa and India.  Keep a Child Alive also provides support to AIDS orphans left behind to keep the most vulnerable children out of harms way.

Thanks to Alicia’s tireless efforts, Keep a Child Alive has raises millions of dollars to care for AIDS patients in Africa and India. As a dedicated Global Ambassador for the organization, Alicia’s work includes well-known media initiatives, such as the “Spirit of a Child” campaign, the controversial “Drug Dealer” campaign and the star-studded “I Am African” campaign, spearheaded by Iman and featuring David Bowie, Gwyneth Paltrow, Richard Gere, Sarah Jessica Parker, Lenny Kravitz, and many other top artists who boldly proclaimed "I Am African."

The battle against AIDS has become Alicia’s own calling and motivation.  She best summarizes her passion, explaining in her June 2008 interview with www.CNN.com:  “Helping keep a child, or mother, or father or brother or sister alive means turning the worst epidemic of our lifetime into the greatest victory of our generation.”  Support Keep a Child Alive by visiting www.keepachildalive.org.

((  Photo Credits: Michelangelo Di Battista  ))