Alicia Keys Celebrates 10th Annual Keep A Child Alive Charity

Alicia Keys Celebrates 10th Annual Keep A Child Alive Charity

We always have to commend folks who use their celebrity for a great cause….

Alicia Keys had her 10th annual Black Ball for her Keep a Child Alive charity that helps children who suffer from AIDS and HIV.

Via Bloomberg:

Alicia Keys saw the impact of AIDS during her first trip to Africa in 2003 and co-founded Keep a Child Alive. Tonight the nonprofit will celebrate its 10th anniversary at the annual Black Ball. The charity’s $5 million budget helps local clinics in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, South Africa and India with treatment programs, food assistance and orphan care.

The performers tonight at Manhattan’s Hammerstein Ballroom will include Keys, singer-producer Pharrell Williams (“Blurred Lines”), Carole King, Kathleen Battle, British soul singer Laura Mvula and R&B-jazz fusion master Roy Ayers. Last year, KCA tapped Peter Twyman, a graduate of the Harvard School of Public Health, to be the organization’s chief executive officer. Twyman previously served as a regional program director at Columbia University’s International Center for AIDS Care and Treatment Programs.

He spoke to me about the nonprofit’s work at Bloomberg News world headquarters in New York.

Cole: How badly have children been affected by the HIV epidemic in Africa?

Twyman: It’s particularly challenging with kids. Only 3 out of 10 who need treatment in middle-income countries are actually getting it. It’s a horrible situation for kids who are infected para-natally. About 50 percent will die by age 2 if they don’t get treatment and 80 percent by the age of 5. It’s an astounding figure. A lot of people think that HIV has been taken care of, but for kids it’s a desperate situation.

Cole: What’s Alicia Keys’s role in all this?

Twyman: She’s our co-founder and global ambassador and she helps us in every way. She helps us with fundraising, she hosts the Black Ball, she engages her celebrity friends and she talks whenever she can about the issue. She’s written letters to the president about HIV funding.

Nice.

Check out images below of everyone who attended the event:

WENN/GSI Media