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Naoma Campbell, Lionel Ritchie promote Kibera initiative


Supermodel Naomi Campbell, plus Hollywood actresses Halle Berry and Maggie Q are set to auction a limited edition of their tote designer bags for Sh108,000 each so as to feed and fund the education of a number of children from Kibera slums.

The celebrity stars are among a dozen others who have teamed up with Los Angeles Art and luxury fashion retailer Church Boutique and the eco-fashion house Ministry of Tomorrow (MOT), as well as Christie’s an art auctioning enterprise, to create an initiative dubbed ‘Art for Education’.

Through the initiative, MOT known for designing high-quality, eco-luxury vegan bags and accessories will produce a number of their new organic canvas tote bags with artistic painting expressions of each celebrity involved in the project.

These are the luxury designer bags that will be auctioned during the inaugural celebrity art auction fundraiser that will be conducted by Christie’s in New York come June this year, with all the proceedings donated to the Chema Center in Kibera slums, Nairobi.

The auction is set to start on June 1st, 2021 with the final bid accepted on the 16th of the same month.

The opening minimum bid for each one-of-a-kind celebrity-designed bag will begin at 1,000 dollars (Sh108,000) with the aim of raising 100,000 dollars (Sh11 million) which will all be channeled to Chema’s accounts.

“We believe that luxury is a privilege that comes with the responsibility to care for others in need and therefore we are thrilled to collaborate with MOT to do what we can to make a difference in the lives of children born into challenging circumstances,” stated Rodney Burns, the Church Boutique founder.

Prior to the auction launch, the bags will be on display from May 19th– 26that Church Boutique headquarters in Hollywood, California before being moved to New York where they will be on display at Christie’s stores during the entire period of the celebrity art auction.

Other international celebrities taking part in this initiative are American legendary comedian and actor Eddie Murphy, Lionel Richie, RnB star Usher Raymond, actor, musician, and model Zoe Kravitz alongside her musician cum actor father Lenny Kravitz.

Chema center, situated in the heart of Kibera, Africa’s largest urban slum, was established to provide quality education for some of Kibera’s most vulnerable children. Many of its students are orphans or children of single parents without stable source of income to fund their education or provide meals for themselves. Since the Covid-19 pandemic hit, the center’s operations were halted due to lack of enough funds to meet its daily operation expenses and remuneration of its staffs.