Video: Shakira aims to help poor kids

Last Thursday, Colombian popstar Shakira got a group of Latin American stars and businessmen together in the Mexican capital to launch ALAS (meaning “WINGS”), a Latin American initiative aimed at aiding the development of young children in the region.

Shakira, who recently got together with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, has been running her own foundation to help the poor since she was 18.

Millionaires Carlos Slim and Howard Buffett, son of Warren Buffett, were also in attendence, lending their financial and moral support to the songstress.

Not so long ago, Latin American artists who spoke up for social causes often risked prison, exile or far worse, writes Reed Johson in the Los Angeles Times.

What a difference a generation makes. On Thursday, a phalanx of Spanish-speaking pop artists headed by Colombian superstar Shakira and Spanish-Italian singer Miguel Bosé gathered here to promote a new initiative to aid Latin America’s millions of poor, malnourished and undereducated children. They were joined by the world’s second-richest man, a top U.S. philanthropist and an international mob of reporters drawn by a potent cocktail of celebrity, money and power, laced with an emerging social conscience.

The following video was made to accompany this story, all rights reserved.