>> Madonna's Playground? Not in Malawi. Madonna's plans to build a $15 million girls school in Malawi have fallen through amid allegations of lavish expenditures for directors of the project, reports the New York Times. The pop star and her fellow Kabbalah followers set up a charity, Raising Malawi, to oversee Madonna's charitable ventures in the African country. On Thursday, it was announced that the charity's board of directors had been expelled after it came to light that extraordinary sums had been squandered on cars, free housing, salaries, and a golf course membership for school officials. $3.8 million has already been spent on the terminated school project, which would have educated 400 girls. Much of that money went to architects, design, salaries, and cars for employees who had not yet been hired. "The project has not broken ground, there was no title to the land and there was, over all, a startling lack of accountability on the part of the management team in Malawi and the management team in the United States," said the founder of the Global Philanthropy Group, who serves as an adviser to Madonna. He contends that a fancy school is an inefficient use of funds and that money should instead be channeled toward established charities.
Read original story in New York Times [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/us/25madonna.html] | Friday, March 25, 2011 << -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
