Queen Latifah is to emcee this year’s Keep A Child Alive Black Ball.

The sixth annual Black Ball will honor Bill Clinton and Richard Branson for their work in eradicating AIDS in Africa, and will be co-hosted by Iman and Padma Lakshmi and feature music from Alicia Keys. More artists will be announced.

The event, which follows last year’s successful gala, will be held at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom on October 15, and will feature an evening of cocktails, dinner & extraordinary performances to benefit children & families with HIV/AIDS in Africa & India. Alicia Keys helped found Keep A Child Alive after visiting South Africa in 2003 and witnessing the effects of the AIDS pandemic firsthand.

“It scares me… it really does,“ she said, referring to the problem of AIDS around the world. “Thinking of myself, thinking of younger generations, my brother’s generation. We have a lot to really be careful about and it’s such a major thing that we have to be cautious. But we can totally avoid it by practicing safe sex and, if you can, just abstinence. And definitely being aware of what’s going on so that you know that you want to protect yourself every time, all the time.”

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COVERGIRL spokesmodel, Queen Latifah, will join the makeup brand's newest spokesmodel, actress/model Dania Ramirez on January 5th to announce the "COVERGIRL Clean Makeup for Clean Water Campaign" - a partnership with the non-profit cause, Children's Safe Drinking Water (CSDW). CSDW addresses the critical need for clean drinking water around the world.

Through a $500,000 donation, COVERGIRL will provide over 50 million gallons of purified drinking water to needy areas via low-cost, Pur(TM) packet technology that purifies even heavily-contaminated water so it meets World Health Organization standards for safe drinking water. This contribution will provide clean water to more than 3.5 million children for a week or nearly 70,000 for a year.

Dania will discuss her recent trip to her native Dominican Republic to help deliver a year's supply of clean drinking water to villages in need (footage and photos available). Fans can enter a contest at CoverGirl.com where they will be asked to write about what they are doing to help give back. For every entry received, COVERGIRL will provide one week's worth of clean drinking water to a child in need. The winner will win a trip to Africa as part of the next Clean Makeup for Clean Water mission.


Source: http://www.blackvibes.com
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Queen Latifah walked up the steps of a three story home in the Clinton Hill section of Newark today, one of hundreds of properties in the city foreclosed on by banks.

Officials at Hope Now, an alliance of non-profit counselors and mortgage servicers committed to foreclosure prevention, said they hoped homeowners in trouble will identify with Latifah, Wyclef Jean, founding member of The Fugees, and Hot 97 radio host Angie Martinez, who joined their efforts to promote foreclosure prevention on February 11, 2009.

"I wasn't born with money. So, I know what it is to go through a tough financial time, or to go broke," Latifah, a Newark native, said while riding a bus past several of the city's foreclosed properties.

Latifah got involved after Stacey D. Stewart, vice president of FannieMae, a Hope Now partner, discussed foreclosures on a night-time news show last year. Stewart said Latifah's manager contacted her after the broadcast, and said the rapper-turned-actress, wanted to help.

"She was sincerely interested in what role she could play in lending a hand to homeowners in risk of foreclosure," said Stewart.

After some discussion, Stewart said it was decided to add Latifah's voice to the cause, and to bring her, along with Jean and Martinez, in to kick off the bus tour in Newark.

"Our fans know that we won't put our face on just anything," said Jean, as the trio rode the "Bringing Hope Home" campaign bus, which advertised a homeowners hotline, (888) 995-4673.

The hotline provides free, 24-hour assistance, in English and Spanish. Callers can receive counseling to avoid foreclosure, including guidance on how to mediate loans with lenders.

The hotline helped about 1,890 homeowners in New Jersey in 2007, according to the alliance.

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http://bit.ly/4Kps0c


Source: http://www.nj.com
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