Monday, January 18, 2010

Wyclef turns to YouTube to respond to criticism of Yele Haiti

With millions of dollars already raised for his nonprofit organization, Yele Haiti, Haitian-born musician Wyclef Jean has emerged as the face of celebrity fundraising for earthquake relief efforts. In the past few days, however, there have been multiple accusations about Yele Haiti's questionable financial record - including allegations that Wyclef is personally benefitting from the charity.


In response, Wyclef turned to YouTube to clarify matters for the public. See his video statement here, which has already racked up over 230,000 views and over 2000 comments in two days:


In the past, we've seen politicians and corporations turn to YouTube to respond to accusations or clarify information, but this is definitely the first time an NGO has been thrust into the spotlight in such a major way, and turned to YouTube to set the story straight.

Unfortunately, it's not quite clear whether Wyclef has really set the story straight in this video. While his work in Haiti is definitely commendable, he doesn't respond provide much specific detail about Yele's hazy financial record. But he does say, "the proof is in the pudding" with promises to post footage of Yele's work in the coming days.

Wyclef, we'll be standing by.

1 comments:

Unknown said...

Why is it he can't provide even one incident of charitable giving?

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