Feist has been laying relatively low on the new music front since releasing her Polaris Music Prize-winning album Metals back in 2011, but she's certainly been keeping busy. Following a trip to Malawi earlier this year, the Canadian singer is getting in touch with her charitable side.
Following some work with medical research organization Dignitas International, Feist has been working to collect backpacks, which will be donated to HIV-positive youth in Malawi. The initiative hopes to make kids' trip from where they have to pick up their medicine monthly to school a little bit easier.
"Unfortunately, there is still a lot of discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS in Malawi," Feist said in a statement [via Now]. "These students have to carry their medicine all the way home with them from the club and take it to school every day so they stay healthy. Because they have no backpacks to carry their medicine, they often lose it or even hide it in bushes outside the school."
Statistics from 2012 put the rate of infection at 10.8 percent of the country's population, and estimate that there are 180,000 Malawian children living with HIV.
Earlier this year, Feist shared a statement about her trip to the country via Facebook, which reads:
After stepping through the door Dignitas opened to me, I feel woken up to some facts I had long been avoiding. The whole question of "how to help" feels simpler and less abstract now, and is contextualized by gratitude and respect rather than an abstracted guilt around our disproportionate world. What I saw of Dignitas's work in Malawi was so absolutely tangible and detailed and pragmatic, yet undertaken with guts and fortitude and an absolute respect for the humanity of the people they're working with. There's a beautiful synergy to this kind of exchange between resource and need…. the payback to all of us over here is in working to right an unnatural distribution of opportunity the first world has bought into as normal. It's refreshing, and in the hands of the calibre of people with Dignitas, it's possible.
You can get more details on how you can help here.
Following some work with medical research organization Dignitas International, Feist has been working to collect backpacks, which will be donated to HIV-positive youth in Malawi. The initiative hopes to make kids' trip from where they have to pick up their medicine monthly to school a little bit easier.
"Unfortunately, there is still a lot of discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS in Malawi," Feist said in a statement [via Now]. "These students have to carry their medicine all the way home with them from the club and take it to school every day so they stay healthy. Because they have no backpacks to carry their medicine, they often lose it or even hide it in bushes outside the school."
Statistics from 2012 put the rate of infection at 10.8 percent of the country's population, and estimate that there are 180,000 Malawian children living with HIV.
Earlier this year, Feist shared a statement about her trip to the country via Facebook, which reads:
After stepping through the door Dignitas opened to me, I feel woken up to some facts I had long been avoiding. The whole question of "how to help" feels simpler and less abstract now, and is contextualized by gratitude and respect rather than an abstracted guilt around our disproportionate world. What I saw of Dignitas's work in Malawi was so absolutely tangible and detailed and pragmatic, yet undertaken with guts and fortitude and an absolute respect for the humanity of the people they're working with. There's a beautiful synergy to this kind of exchange between resource and need…. the payback to all of us over here is in working to right an unnatural distribution of opportunity the first world has bought into as normal. It's refreshing, and in the hands of the calibre of people with Dignitas, it's possible.
You can get more details on how you can help here.
