Madonna’s relationship with the small African nation dates back to 2006, when she adopted a local boy. The adoption received worldwide attention and brought Malawi and Madonna a flood of positive press coverage, so much so that it arguably put Malawi on the map and sanctified the super star in the public eye. For the first time, Madonna was living up to her namesake, wiping clean her raunchy image of a pop diva and transforming into a charitable superpower. Subsequently, Madonna adopted another child, this time a little girl, aptly named Mercy. This adoption firmly cemented her personal ties to the country. However, recently the once amiable connection has taken a turn for the worse, and what ensued is a story more scandalous and dramatic than the plot of many of the star’s Hollywood films, accented by the reverberation of unfulfilled promises.
To understand what caused the break, a thorough examination of Madonna’s ties with Kabbalah must be done. In 2006 Madonna co-founded the philanthropic foundation “Raising Malawi” together with Michael Berg, Co-director of the Kabbalah Center. Michael Berg is the son of Philip Berg, a Brooklyn-born New York Life insurance agent whose first wife happened to be the niece of a famous Kabbalist, Rabbi Yehuda Brandwein. Since its inception, the Bergs have been running the Kabbalah Center like a family business, with Karen Berg, (Philip’s wife) the acting director ever since Philip Berg’s illness. The Bergs eventually expanded to 77 centers and study groups around the world. Though spirituality is their central message, the Bergs live a lavish earthly lifestyle comparable to that of their superstar mascot, owning properties in Beverly Hills, New York and other posh locations. According to the Los Angeles Times, the Internal Revenue Service has been investigating the Los Angeles-based spiritual organization for tax evasion since 2010. A federal grand jury in New York has issued subpoenas for records relating the Bergs, and the center’s assets, which are estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
In the beginning, the collaboration between Madonna’s charity and the country of Malawi was seamless. The purpose of the charity was to assist Malawi’s population of over 1 million orphans by supporting community-based organizations that provide vulnerable children and caregivers with resources like food, clothing, shelters, schools, etc. One of the key initiatives that Madonna proposed was to build the $6 million, 500-bed Academy for girls. In so doing, Raising Malawi had budgeted $6 million towards the construction of the school and an additional $9 million which would take care of operational costs for years to come. While some may say that this an extraordinary figure for just a school in one of the least-developed parts of the world, it is quite the contrary. To put this into perspective, Oprah’s Leadership Academy for Girls cost $40 million for actually a smaller school in scope. Even more so, this school in Malawi was not only meant to be a development tool for Malawi, but was intended to be a concept school that was to be transplanted not only throughout Africa, but throughout the entire world.
In an effort to raise funding for this project, Madonna hosted a star-studded fundraising event for Malawi orphans, and UNICEF produced a documentary “I Am Because We Are”, all in the name of helping the orphans of Malawi and building the academy for the children.
To render credibility to the charity, Madonna hired Anjimile Oponyo, the sister of Malawi’s first female president Dr. Joyce Banda, to act as the academy director of the charity. A seasoned international executive with experience working at the World Bank and the United Nations, Oponyo gave up her plum position and took a pay cut to return to her homeland and head up the charity in which she earned $96,000 a year. As a matter of perspective, the average salary for a comparable expat executive in Malawi working for an NGO would be well over $100,000 and that’s not even including housing, vehicle, and expenses. To add to her sacrifice, Oponyo had uprooted herself and her family in the process thereby relocating her entire family consisting of 5 girls and her husband from the USA to Malawi. Shortly thereafter, Oponyo visited Oprah’s Leadership Academy for Girls School, built in South Africa and which was funded by $50 million of Oprah’s own money, and as she understood, was the model that Madonna was going to use for Malawi.
In 2009 Madonna told the New York Times that she had successfully raised over $18 million for “Raising Malawi” and had spent $10.6 million to fund activities in Malawi. These numbers were never verified, and in fact are in dispute. Conflicting reports and an ensuing investigation from the IRS revealed that the charity had allegedly raised over $240 million. While one would assume that however large or small the sum of money raised would result in the speedy construction of the Academy for girls, to this day, promises have not been fulfilled.
Instead of injecting this $18 million into Malawi into this large-scale academy for Malawi’s children, suddenly and without any reason the project was cut. In fact, there had been a tremendous amount of work that had been put into this construction and it is estimated about 30% of the entire project was done and $3.8 million had been spent. In order to cover up and explain this sudden axing of the academy, Madonna and Trevor Nielson, Madonna’s charity chief, accused Oponyo of mismanagement of funds. However, according to sources, these accusations were completely baseless as the construction of the school was going according to plans and according to budget. If mismanagement was the issue, Madonna and Raising Malawi could have easily solved this problem by bringing in a new management team or entering into a joint venture with another NGO to finish the job. Instead, Madonna let $3.6 million in sunk costs from donor funds go completely to waste, and instead of constructing schools, she merely built additional classrooms and made a few renovations to already existing schools amounting to only $300,000. Consequently, there have also been several civil suits filed recently alleging that the Kabbalah Centre had exploited the trust of wealthy followers and donors sympathetic to the project in Malawi in order to pillage their bank accounts.
This, however, has not prevented the star from making her recent four-day trip to the African state hoping to highlight the school-building program she helped fund — plus offer some worthwhile personal PR to yet again focus on her image of international humanitarian— but this time there was no red carpet rolled out for the singer. Emotions clashed and a maelstrom of accusations followed, which has dented the star’s image as a modern day savior.
Currently, the Material Girl finds herself at the center of an ongoing diplomatic incident. In an unprecedented attack, the President of Malawi Dr. Joyce Banda accused Madonna of making the poor dance for her. She asks, “Where are the ten schools she promised to build? She is only building school blocks at schools already in existence. In some cases she renovated an already existing block. This is an insult to the people of Malawi. She should not lie and be deceptive to the world at our expense. Madonna came with the pledge to build a school for our orphans, an academy like the one Oprah built in Africa. But apparently she has changed her mind.”
The country’s education minister has also poured scorn on claims that Madonna’s charity, Raising Malawi, has built ten new schools for 4,800 children. ‘The schools were already in existence,’ says Eunice Kazembe. ‘It is classrooms that Madonna has donated. They have built ten classroom blocks. It is helpful, but it is a long shot to call it significant.’
The allegation is that after promising the $15 million project, Madonna is now doing her charity work on the cheap. Raising Malawi and Success For Kids, did not actually build any of the schools she visited. That job was done by American charity BuildOn, which has been erecting two-room schools in the state for 20 years. In fact, Madonna closed the offices of both her charities in Lilongwe in 2011. According to the Global Philanthropy Group, which oversees her charity work, Madonna donated $400,000 to BuildOn. Given that the charity’s annual income is in the region of $9 million, Madonna is a fairly minor contributor.
Adding insult to injury, spin doctors hired by the star’s team spun a story about outlandish expenditures to distract the public attention from the fact that the promised school would not be built, and that funds raised have gone unaccounted for. And if that were not enough, Trevor Neilson has caused outrage by accusing Malawi government officials of corruption on Twitter. Even more so, Nielson continues to blame Oponyo for any diplomatic gaffes despite her departure from the Raising Malawi staff. All this to distract the public from focusing on the fact that Madonna and her posse did not deliver on the promises.
Behind this bitter PR war are accusations of wasted millions and an obsession with self-publicity. In the end, Madonna made important promises to the country of Malawi, which are largely undelivered. Earlier last week, the pop star sold her Fernand Léger painting titled “Three Women at the Red Table” at a Sotheby’s auction for $7.2 million. The money from the work will go to the Ray of Light Foundation, a nonprofit organization that benefits poor children around the world. Raising Malawai, on the other hand, was not mentioned in the press release.
