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Haiti

Haiti: Actor Will Smith To Sell Artwork To Feed Hungry

Actor Will Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith are helping WFP to raise funds to feed hungry children in Haiti by auctioning a special artwork signed by music artists who performed at the Nobel Peace Prize concert in Oslo last month.

ROME -- Actor Will Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith are helping WFP to raise funds to feed hungry children in Haiti by auctioning a special artwork signed by music artists who performed at the Nobel Peace Prize concert in Oslo last month.

The artwork, which WFP and the Will & Jada Smith Family Foundation will sell on eBay, is based on a map of world hunger. It is decorated with personalised silhouettes drawn by Will, his family and the artists who performed at the concert. Go to eBay auction page

Will Smith

Will Smith is an American actor, film producer and rapper. He has starred in such movie hits as Bad Boys, Independence Day, Men in Black, The Pursuit of Happyness, I Am Legend, Hancock and Hitch. With his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, he founded the Will and Jada Smith Family Foundation, a charity organization which focuses on urban inner city youth and family support.

Performers' drawings

Among the artists who left their marks on the artwork were Wyclef Jean, Natasha Bedingfield, Toby Keith, Westlife, Esperanza Spalding, Alexander Rybak, Amadou & Mariam, Donna Summer, Lang Lang and Luis Fonsi.

Will and Jada were the co-hosts of the concert held in the Norwegian capital on December 2 to honour the winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, US president Barack Obama.

Will Smith underlined the link between hunger and peace with the words he wrote on his silhouette on the map: "There can be no true peace in the world while there is hunger."

Food and security

President Obama made the same point in his acceptance speech. "Security does not exist where human beings do not have access to enough food...where children cannot aspire to a decent education," he said.

All proceeds from the auction will go towards providing nutritious meals to school kids in Haiti. In a country where child malnutrition is common, WFP programmes provide food to more than 500,000 school children.