SPEAKER: He's a five-time
Grammy winner, multi-platinum
recording artist.
But he's a lot more than that.
He went to Ghana and he looked
at one of the Millennium
Villages that Jeff Sachs was
working on, and he decided
that he wanted to help
make a difference.
And he's going to tell you
about his program in Tanzania,
and his Show Me Campaign.
So we've heard him, and now
we're going to hear him
a little different.
John.
[APPLAUSE]
JOHN LEGEND: Thank you Majora,
it was very inspiring
and humbling.
And thank you Larry.
I think this a great forum,
and I'm glad to be here.
I'm humbled to be here also.
There's a lot of experts
in the room, and experts
up here on this stage.
I consider myself a student,
someone who's trying to learn.
And also to help teach my fans
and the people that listen
to me, the things that I'm
learning as I'm learning them.
I was really inspired by
reading The End of Poverty by
Jeffrey Sachs, which I'm sure
many of you have heard about
and some of you have read.
And one of the things I wanted
to do as a musician, as someone
who is an artist that has reach
and has fans that listen to me,
I wanted to connect them to
that experience of
reading that book.
But also to make them feel that
they could contribute and be
part of the solution, and
not just kind of a
passive observer.
Not just someone who from
thousands of miles away hears
what's going on, sees the
numbers that Larry so vividly
described before, but also
connect them to the faces of
the world's most
extremely poor.
And give them an opportunity to
make a difference, both with
their money, with their
time, with their energy.
And really connect
them to that.
So what we started was called
the Show Me Campaign.
And we work directly
with Jeffrey Sachs and
Millennium Promise.
And we decided we were going to
sponsor a village in Tanzania.
We just went to the
village recently.
And what we want to do, and
what we're doing, is one of the
things we're doing is with
Facebook-- which you guys,
plenty of you have
probably heard of.
I'm not exactly logged on yet,
but a lot of my friends are.
But the idea is to really give
a group of people ownership and
control and a bit of influence
and a lot of learning and data
about what's going on in
the philanthropy world.
So we went to Tanzania and we
took photos, we did videos,
just to show people what
was going on there.
So it wasn't just a number, it
was an actual face, it was an
actual child, it was an actual
farmer in Tanzania who is
being benefited by the work
that they're doing there.
And then we also did
some data collection.
And what we're going to do is
on Facebook and on my website,
ShowMeCampaign.org, show people
the things that they can buy
for the communities
in Tanzania.
And make that intervention very
real to my fans and to the
people that care enough to go
on the site and connect to it.
So overall what I want to do as
a musician who has an
opportunity, who has people who
listen to me and listen to my
music and care about these
things, connect them
more to this issue.
Make it at high priority for
them, and make them responsible
citizens, responsible people
who vote, and responsible
people who give and care about
this issue and feel connected
in a tangible way
to this issue.
So Show Me Campaign,
ShowMeCampaign.org.
Thank you.
