No stranger to charitable causes, having notched up collaborations with Breast Health International and the Nancy Davis Foundation for Multiple Sclerosis, Tommy Hilfiger been named nonprofit organization Millennium Promise’s first MDG Global Leader.
The charity’s mission is to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals, which set out to halve extreme poverty in southern Africa by 2015. In 2009, The Tommy Hilfiger Corporate Foundation committed $2 million to the mission.
In his role as Global Leader, Hilfiger’s focus will be on a five-year campaign to build sustainable communities in sub-Saharan Africa through the Millennium Villages project.
Hilfiger recently toured the Millennium Village cluster in Ruhiira, a 55,000 strong community in remote rural Uganda (below, left). Four years ago, 60 percent of Ruhiira’s mostly subsistence farmers were living on less that a dollar a day. Today, thanks to an integrated program of development interventions, food production has doubled and health and water sanitation facilities have been markedly improved resulting in better maternal health outcomes and a decrease in the incidence of malaria.
“No one could fail to be deeply moved at the many serious challenges that villagers face very day in Ruhiira,” Hilfiger says. “But, at the same time, I have been incredibly inspired by the community spirit and the desire to make long term changes.”
Hilfiger employees will get the chance to travel to Ruhiira in the next five years to help with the ongoing development work. A campaign to educate consumers about the program will follow.
The moves have been applauded by Professor Jeffery D. Sachs, the President and Co-founder of Millennium Promise. “Tommy’s announcement today affirms that corporate leaders everywhere can play an indispensable role in educating both their workforce and their consumers about how we can best achieve the Millennium Development Goals.”
Photo via Tommy.com, photo by Sakilah Uddin at Flickr.