Prior to mid-October, no-one I knew could have told me where Malawi is. Not that I would have asked because I didn’t even know it existed. Today, anyone who reads their daily dose of publications ranging from Us Weekly to The New York Times to People Magazine can tell you that it is a small country in Northern Africa. Oh, and that Madonna adopted her son David there.
Madonna, as we all well know, is the master of trend setting and if she attaches her name to something; a product, an album, a cause, it is bound to take off. From a public relations perspective, she has got to be one of the most powerful motivating forces in marketing and, love her or hate her, she gets ink, (and footage and air time).
She has single handedly alerted the world to the plight of Malawian children. The horrific poverty and disease that encompasses the small nation. The infant mortality rate, the number of children rendered orphans as a result of the AIDS epidemic, the limited amount of existing institutional education, all of these issues have come into the spotlight as Madonna’s adoption of David has stirred controversy.
It is completely amazing that one woman can wield so much power. It would not come as a surprise if we see celebrities in the future adopting babies from Malawi. And, whether they adopt or not, Madonna’s charity, Raising Malawi, is sure to benefit from all of the press attention and her high profile connections.
It doesn’t matter if you agree with her politics, or support all of her “artistic” decisions. It doesn’t matter if you agree with her adoption, or think she received preferential treatment from the tiny African nation. It doesn’t matter if you buy her albums, or children’s books. Madonna has raised global awareness for Malawi in a way that no public relations tactical plan ever could.
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