Keep a Child Alive

Founder Leigh Blake opened the evening with a moving speech aimed at galvanizing the audience to help Keep A Child Alive. The audience was full of Corporations, business leaders, celebrities, all of whom could cause their own humanitarian community to happen and bring us more widely to the public. This was the beginning of one of the best concerts seen in a long time. Emcee Wanda Sykes introduced the honorees as well as Poet Saul Williams who gave us a scathing reminder of how racism works and as our Hero Stephen Lewis would say, what a devastating effect “subterranean racism” has on AID to Africa. Stephen was there at the Black Ball and talked about Keep A Child Alive in the field and how impressed he has been by our model and our commitment. KCA was so honored because he truly is our Mentor and Hero.

Hosted by Alicia Keys and Iman, these two committed KCA Ambassadors walked the red carpet with such luminaries as Valentino, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes in the week before their wedding, Anne Hathaway, Kimora Lee Simons, Russell Simmons, Gayle King, Helena Christenson and Mayor Bloomberg.

This year’s honorees for the 2006 Humanitarian Award were Richard Beckman, President of Conde Nast who was presented by Iman herself for his dedication to raising awareness to the issue through his media and helping KCA get its “I am African” campaign out there to the public. Actor Edward Norton presented Dr. Paul Farmer and Partners in Health the award for their tireless work in the field as well as showing us that providing first class health care to the poor can be done effectively in resource poor settings and “Mama” Carol Dyanti presented by actor Jeffrey Wright. Mama Carol is based in Soweto, South Africa where her organization, Ikageng Ministries is caring for children who have lost their parents to AIDS and live in child-headed households. Ikageng provides clothing, food parcels, school fees and uniforms for these children as well as love and hope.

Alicia Keys then presented a special surprise to some of the children that Mama Carol has cared for throughout her years. These young adults helped to remind us what children are suffering and what a terrible burden AIDS is on their lives. Alicia made some of their dreams come true. These wishes were told to us by many of the kids and though only Simphiwe, Thomas and Sandile could come to the US, whilst they were here, we decided to help bring their dreams to life. Simphiwe told us that her dream was to meet Elijah Wood, Sandile wants to be a rapper and Thomas wasn’t thinking about himself at all, only to have Mama Carol go on a much needed vacation. Alicia then announced that all their wishes would come true. Elijah, Russell Simmons and a great vacation promise were the tearful results of this segment of the show.

As always, under Alicia’s musical direction the performances were unforgettable. Alicia performed the great Janis Joplin masterwork, “Take Another Piece of My Heart,” Damian Marley sang “Jamrock” with Alicia, Angelique performed “Afrika,” Louis XIV rocked it and of course the legendary David Bowie sang three songs with Alicia joining him on Changes to end the evening.

Over 1.3 million dollars was raised for Keep A Child Alive. We thank all of our sponsors and donors for their committed support in 2006. As you know we use the funds raised by the Black Ball to fund our operational costs, campaigns and bolster our projects in the field with expansion.

We are grateful to all the corporations and donors who supported us