Shakira Sponsors New School

Snake-hipped Grammy-winning pop star Shakira has helped fund a new school in Colombia for children displaced by guerrilla violence. The South American beauty is sponsoring the school for 1,500 students, which was constructed by the Pies Descalzos (Bare Feet) Foundation in Barranquilla, the city of her birth. Shakira started the foundation in 1997. It is named after her breakthrough hit album released a year before. She commented on the release of former Colombian governor Alan Jara, the latest politician to be freed by militant group FARC, saying: "Happy, happy to see that every day we are closer to having a free country. "I would like to think that these are signals that that is where we are going. I am celebrating. I celebrated the release of Ingrid Betancourt and the release of these hostages. "It is also a great pleasure to me and I hope that they continue releasing more hostages, hope that a solution can be found, a peaceful solution to our conflicts, our ideological differences for us to be a free country soon." Through her foundation Shakira works to alleviate child poverty and has spoken on the issue with Latin American leaders. But she said she is worried about how the global economic downturn will affect children. "These are very difficult times for the world and the children are the ones that suffer the consequences of a financial crisis. It gets harder to provide food to the kids. Thousands and thousands, millions of kids receive less food around the world because of the financial crisis."

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ITN | February 5, 2009

Tags:. .barranquilla. .shakira. .guerrilla. .colombian. .farc