By Anna Medaris Miller for Business Insider and World Economic Forum
Retrieved 4/15: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/lady-gaga-coronavirus-response-fund/
Lady Gaga has raised $35 million in seven days from corporations and philanthropists for the World Health Organization's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.
She is also partnering with the WHO and Global Citizen to launch a virtual festival April 18 called "One World Together at Home" aimed at uniting the world in the fight against coronavirus.
The event, which is not a fundraiser, will feature dozens of stars, including Billie Eilish, Lizzo, and Elton John.
"We want to celebrate and encourage the power of the human," she said.
Lady Gaga has helped raise $35 million in seven days for the World Health Organization's Solidarity Response Fund by calling on corporate leaders and philanthropists, she said at a WHO media briefing April 6. The money will go toward global PPE supplies, testing kits, and help "improve lab capacity" to process the tests, she said. "We have said consistently that we are all in this together and we can only succeed together," the World Health Organization's director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said when announcing Lady Gaga at the briefing. "We need an all-of-society approach with everyone playing their part. That includes people in the entertainment industry." Gaga also announced her partnership the WHO and the music festival organization Global Citizen to spearhead a streamed musical festival called "One World Together at Home."
The virtual concert, showing on many networks at 8 pm EST on April 18, will feature dozens of stars including Billie Eilish, Lizzo, Elton John, Chris Martin, Paul McCartney, and Stevie Wonder. It will not be a fundraiser but rather a celebration of "the power of the human" that the pandemic has brought to light. Throughout her announcement, Gaga praised healthcare workers on the frontlines of the fight against the novel coronavirus.
Image: REUTERS/Andrew Kelly "My heart is very, very, achy and warm for those who are ER doctors and nurses who are sleeping in cars to make sure they don't infect their families or their patients," she said. "What you're doing is putting yourselves in harm's way to help the world, and we all salute you and you are a triumph, truly." Gaga also extended her prayers to people who are sick, and those who have lost their jobs and are struggling to feed themselves and their kids. The concert, she and her collaborators hope, will bring attention to all the positive that's occurring in the world now too.
"We celebrate and we highlight the singular, kind global community that is arising right now," she said. "We want to highlight the gravity of this historical, unprecedented, cultural movement. And, we want to celebrate and encourage the power of the human." "When we do air live on April 18th," she added, "put your wallet away, put anything away that you need to, and sit back and enjoy the show that you all very much deserve."