It was 33 years ago that Nelly Kim Furtado was born in the Canadian city of Victoria, British Columbia and it is today that her fans celebrate her birthday with videos, images and Twitter messages featured on her official website!

 Nelly fans from all around the world joined the project by wishing her a happy birthday drawing pictures of her, making digital collages, taking pictures of themselves with their Nelly items, filming videos and tweeting their best wishes. 

The initiative created to help fans show their love and support for Nelly has brought them together even more! Nelstars from all over the world have also met and seen new friends who share their admiration for her.

 Thank you to all of you who supported the campaign, this celebration belongs to you.

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ESP

¡Hoy es el cumpleaños de Nelly! 

Fue hace 33 años que Nelly Kim Furtado nació en la ciudad canadiense de Victoria, British Columbia y es hoy que sus fans celebran su cumpleaños con videos, imágenes y mensajes de Twitter presentados en su website oficial. 

Los fans de Nelly de todo el mundo se unieron al proyecto y le desearon un feliz cumpleaños haciendo dibujos y collages digitales de ella, tomándose fotos con sus items de Nelly, grabando videos y enviando sus mejores deseos por Twitter.

 ¡La iniciativa creada para ayudar a los fans a mostrar su amor y apoyo a Nelly los ha unido aún más! Nelstars de todo el mundo también se han conocido y han visto a nuevos amigos que comparten su admiración por ella.

Gracias a todos ustedes quienes apoyaron la campaña, ésta celebración les pertenece.

Last January, I was invited to Africa. Somehow, I knew it was time to come home.

While the people, the places left such strong impressions, the hope I left Africa with was more profound than anything else.

I learned so much about community, spirituality and, of course, song and dance, African rhythms, and the sustainable work Free The Children does in true partnership with communities in Kenya and worldwide – Sierra Leone, India, Ecuador, China to name a few.

I learned how one country’s political realities can affect all the nations sharing Africa. I learned about Moammar Gadhafi as a leader and dictator. I felt so ignorant but, at the same time, enlightened. My thoughts immediately went back to a concert I performed as part of a celebration thrown by someone described as an “oil sheik” in Italy in 2007. That night, I met a “son of Gadhafi” who had helped pay for the celebration. I didn’t know much about Libya then; in Kenya, I began to learn more.

A month or two after I returned from Kenya, as the Libyan civil war heated up, I found myself, BlackBerry in hand at 3 a.m., unable to sleep: In Libya, people who rightly believed the cost of freedom was worth it because the benefits were tenfold, were being killed; people were living things I couldn’t truly fathom, but I could feel the weight of them inside my heart. At that moment, in an act of solidarity, I sent a tweet about my intentions to return money I felt wasn’t truly mine.

I decided to give the $1-million (what I was paid to cover all expenses for the 2007 concert) to Free The Children, but wanted a plan that would include the people of Libya. I decided on a sustainable program, rather than immediate aid, inspired by the work I had seen in action with Free The Children in Kenya. I wanted to support women’s rights in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regions of Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Gaza. I wanted to help educate girls so they might have a place in the new democratic regimes in MENA postrevolution – a revolution many women helped spark.

I also wanted to build another school in Kenya like the beautiful Kisaruni school where I spent life-changing days – a school that would support brave girls like the ones I had met, girls so confident they put my 14-year-old self to shame. I wanted and needed the help of youth across North America, so I’ve set up a matching program through Free The Children to inspire youth to do more fundraising and believe in the “power of we.”

I vividly remember my life-changing experience at the concert in Italy in 2007. Then, it felt like a story I could tell my grandchildren about the brutal but very real divide between the extremely wealthy and the extremely poor. I felt I had seen the “other side” – an “other” rarely known by someone with my humble beginnings. At the time, I felt like a servant performing at an invisible king’s court, realizing for the first time just how common the role of “entertainer” is in the grand scheme of the ages. That said, I realized my price tag for the evening would have raised the eyebrows of my music conductor grandfather in the Azores. Now I understand that the feeling in the pit of my stomach was just the toll of that amazing bell we all have within that signifies a new journey in life. Then, the sound was faint. Today, it rings louder than ever in my heart. It’s so ironic that I went to Kenya intending “to help” and left as the one who received the most charity.

The world is and always will be complicated. Moral dilemmas will continue to be present in my career, which attempts to merge corporate and emotional needs on a daily basis. The world is changing faster than we can handle. Money rules.

Yet, in that rural town in Kenya near Kisaruni High School, God rules. I now laugh at the phrase “Third World,” because the “Third World” is so full of human triumph. In many ways, it is the heart of the spiritual world. A name like “third eye world” would be more appropriate. It is the world that contains the people who will save us with their proximity to God, primordial relevance and belief in the human senses and sensitivities – the very things that make us vital as humans and will ensure our survival. We just need to wake up and start joining forces.