I have worked with celebrities. Not once, not twice. One instance I clearly remember was a work I did with the Oscar-winning actor and director, Michael Douglas who had come here to do a movie on child combatants. I was his guide we visited Kono where, as part of the plot, the movie producers, RTN Entertainment wanted to reunite a former boy soldier with his parents who were living in the northern Port Loko district.
For hours, we walked on piles of tailings and only one person identified Michael and screamed “Michael Douglas” before starting to recount his movies he had seen – from Basic Instinct to The American President and Romancing The Stone. I then said to myself that it was pointless to send someone as a Goodwill Ambassadors to a country where they are not well known. I must say though that these Goodwill Ambassadors perform a tremendously brilliant job to raise awareness about certain issues.
I appreciate the fact that celebrities who are hugely popular in the West can be hot-cake sellers for the cause of the organisations that appointed them as Goodwill Ambassadors. Especially if they are well known in both the country they are visiting and where they are resident. In the case of the latter because of the huge audience that will listen to their message; And in the case of the former to attract more finding. And I see that happening with more and more European big league footballers and Nollywood movie stars joining in the fray. Unlike Angelina Jollie who visited here and was overwhelmed mostly by Western staffers working with the United Nations here at the time, when Genevieve Nnaji or Stephanie Okereke visited here, everyone fell over each other to catch a glimpse of the Nollywood stars and listen to their cause. Here, their messages sink because of the passion the people show towards them. And this is not in any way demeaning the stature of Angelina; after all she is my wife’s favourite. But that’s just the fact.
Now, on Sunday 4 October I was on the same flight with the man named as the Best English Premiership Player of all time, Ryan Giggs of Manchester United. No prize for guessing which premiership team I support. It so happened that I didn’t know he was on the flight until we arrived at the Lungi airport. I later learned that he was guest of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) since he is a Unicef Goodwill Ambassador for HIV and Child Survival. Once the plane had landed at the Lungi airport he was whisked off to a waiting UN helicopter to be flown across to Freetown. I understand the reason for all that: It was dark, security is not that assured at an airport where a cocaine plane would land without permission, and some non-airport officials would hound you, and on and on and on. But what I don’t get is this:
The essence of bringing celebrities is for them to raise awareness. But how can they when they are kept in the closet. Like his former team mate David Beckham who was also brought here by UNICEF before him, Ryan Giggs was not opened to the press or the public. I understand he was taken to Binkolo, like Beckham was, and back to Freetown and then off he went a day or so later. He may have visited some child survival projects which UNICEF is doing very well with, but his message should not just be left with his accompanying press corps to tell. How about organising public functions for such celebrities when they visit. I appreciate the fact that security is of serious concern but allowing Giggs to have taken a walk on the beach or even in downtown Freetown would have raised such public passion that it would have provided a powerful conduit through which to send his message on HIV and child survival. But I still find it incomprehensible that even news of Giggs’ being here, like that of Beckham, was treated with such topmost secrecy that would relegate that which would surround the arrival in Iraq or in Afghanistan of President Barack Obama. I wonder where such secrecy takes the public awareness and sensitisation to.
That the National AIDS Secretariat did not know a thing about the visit of Giggs even though it had to do with HIV was also incomprehensible. My interest in the fight against the deadly virus is sometimes dampened by the fact that local institutions have to wait until they are dictated to by foreign partners. Or they are not involved in some of the issues dealing with it. There is a whole lot to do in this regard that also seems to wait sometimes until World AIDS day on 1 December approaches. Giggs would surely have exchanged a lot of ideas with guys at deprived communities in Freetown (and there are a lot of them) where HIV prevalence is high and the message would have really sunk. Emersion sessions with commercial sex workers and their pimps for example would have also done the trick.
Celebrities are used to be being hounded. Giggs would in no way have been hounded here any more than he would be in any other place where football is popular. There should even have been a friendly match in his honour where he would have addressed the sell-out crowd. He should have visited schools and spoken with pupils and even university students among whom HIV is either as big an issue as Giggs himself is. Imagine the rampant teenage pregnancy which is obviously as a result of unprotected sex. A Giggs or Beckham message would have done the trick.
I hope the next time UNICEF or any other institution brings in a celebrity to the country the best will be made of the visit to be able to achieve the best result. That result will achieve the optimum if such celebrities are easily identifiable and associated with by the target group. I appreciate the fact that Giggs father was born in Sierra Leone, his grandfather having come here from Syria I understand. That means the closer the celebrity is to the country the better. But I bet my life that as long as such celebrities are big European football league players they will be jumped at and listened to. But they can also be popular movie stars that are global brands. Sam Jackson, Leonardo Di Caprio, Denzel Washington, to name three. And why not, they can also be world renowned journalists who can engage the local media here about HIV and other child survival issues. Such ideas-sharing and awareness-raising sessions can be as well-articulated as they will result-oriented if all hands are put on deck and the right things done with the right people for such right causes.
By Umaru Fofana