Madonna Gives 200 Malawi Villagers the Boot to Make Room for Girls School

BY Stephen CarlickPublished Feb 12, 2010

You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, or so the saying goes. But pop music icon Madonna might be breaking just a few too many this time around.

Last fall, Madonna cut the ribbon on her plans to spend $15 million to build a girls school in Malawi, the impoverished, southern African nation from which the pop star has already adopted two children. The school was set to take 500 female students from the country's 28 districts.

Now, as the CBC reports, construction is forcing 200 Malawi residents out of their homes in order to make way for the facility.

Residents of Blantyre, a village just outside Malawi's capital of Lilongwe, are ignoring the government's demands and are threatening to block the project altogether, despite receiving a collective $115,000 from Madonna and a new area of land from the Malawi government on which to settle.

On February 11, village leader Binson Chinkhota urged some 200 protesters to allow the school's construction to continue: "We have been compensated, and this school is a pride for us as it is the future of our children."

Madonna has yet to comment on the matter.

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