About
Leigh Blake
Founder and President
For more than 30 years, Leigh Blake has been an advocate, harbinger and creator of the arts from music and film, to fashion and the visual arts. Blake has unleashed all of her expertise to combat the issue she believes will define our generation: AIDS
In her 20’s, Blake befriended Talking Heads on one of their tours of the U.K. As a fan and friend, Blake helped market the band in England, and eventually in 1976, moved to America to continue to represent the band. In 1986, her film career started in earnest as producer on a short film on the legendary highway Route 66, directed by cinematographer Ed Lachman, and made for Lindsay Law’s PBS series “Imagining America.” The film was very well reviewed and Leigh returned to England flush with the experience to head up the music video division at the legendary Palace Pictures, working with Nik Powell, Stephen Woolley and Joanne Sellar. Many years later and back in America, Leigh would go on to co-develop Larry Clark’s controversial first feature “Kids” with Gus van Sant.
While her creative career was thriving, AIDS was starting to gravely affect Leigh’s peers in the arts. Leigh turned her creative prowess to making a difference and co-founded the Red Hot Organization, the seminal music industry initiative that raised funds for HIV/AIDS research and education by bringing together top artists such as David Byrne, Madonna, Annie Lennox, U2, k.d. lang, Jim Jarmusch, Wim Wenders, Jonathan Demme, Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger and many others to collaborate on music and television productions. Leigh produced the first Red Hot projects “Red Hot + Blue” and “Red Hot + Dance” from Palace Pictures in London. “Red Hot + Blue” was a triumph as the first AIDS benefit produced through the music industry. It was seen in more than 60 countries, raised millions and was nominated for an Emmy.
In 1991 Leigh became more involved with Africa. Her experience with the Red Hot organization and her travels in Africa, led Leigh to create, and serve as Executive Director of Artists Against AIDS Worldwide (AAAW), an organization dedicated to the eradication of AIDS in Africa. In 2001 Leigh conceived a campaign that featured a star-studded remake of Marvin Gaye’s classic song “What’s Going On” at its cornerstone. Urged on by her Co-Executive Producer and dear friend Bono, more than 40 artists including Destiny’s Child, Fred Durst, Nona Gaye, Alicia Keys, Ja Rule, Jennifer Lopez, Nelly, Nelly Furtado, Nas, Diddy, ?uestlove, Britney Spears, Staind, Wyclef Jean, Eve, Lil Kim and Christina Aguilera signed on for the remake of the song, as well as participate in a “making of” documentary of the project made in conjunction with Executive Producers Gary Goetzman and Tom Hanks and their company, Playtone.
With money she garnered from her work with Red Hot + Blue, Leigh began the building of a clinic in Kenya, which, under the guidance of Dr. Shaffiq Essajee at New York University Medical Centre, has become the model for many other clinics Leigh wants to build all over Africa. In 2003 Leigh officially founded Keep a Child Alive, (KCA) which provides vitally needed anti retroviral medicine to children and families with AIDS in the improvised world. She created Keep a Child Alive as the iPod of charity, reinventing and modernizing the model of charitable organizations to create a new movement to save lives in emergency mode. Keep a Child Alive remains a modern version of the charitable response to AIDS and will always feel in your face, irreverent and ever changing.”
Since its inception KCA has worked with the amazing 11-time Grammy winner, Alicia Keys, who is a co-founder of the organization. Alicia and Leigh are a formidable team with Leigh providing the AIDS background and the producing expertise and Alicia using her considerable talents to be the voice for those who are affected by AIDS.
Keep a Child Alive has a record for firsts. KCA was the first NGO to ask the public for donations to specifically fund the AIDS treatment that people so desperately needed. Then, KCA created the beautiful documentary Alicia in Africa: Journey to the Motherland, which became the first film of its kind to be made available on the Internet for free worldwide on www.aliciainafrica.com. KCA is pioneering Philanthropy 2.0 as the first charity to successfully implement a text-message donation campaign in the United States, which has raised more than half a million dollars for the programs we currently support.
To date, Keep a Child Alive has helped more than 250,000 adults and children obtain life saving HIV/AIDS medication and regular, ongoing HIV care and testing. Keep a Child Alive also provides pediatric expertise and nutritional grants to affected areas. KCA is also committed to scaling up clinics and orphan care centers in Africa and India to provide comprehensive HIV/AIDS care.
“My goal for the organization is to provide treatment to as many people with AIDS as possible, care for as many children orphaned by AIDS, protect those infected with HIV via violence, and create safe houses for those stigmatized and abandoned by their families.”
Leigh Blake currently resides in New York City with her ten year old son. She considers service the best anti-depressant in the world!