- PHOTO BY JANET SILVERA
Hollywood movie star Danny Glover at the Rose Hall Resort and Country Club last Saturday.
Janet Silvera, Outlook Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
POWERFUL LEAD roles in Steven Spielberg's The Colour Purple and the renowned Lethal Weapon movies are what makes the exceptionally versatile actor, Danny Glover, a favourite among audiences worldwide.
But the megastar readily differentiates career and his philanthropic efforts.
Outside of filming, stage plays and television, Glover says he finds time to bring awareness to various issues affecting the society, and celebrates the kind of work that people all over the world are doing with children and civil society.
CONFERENCE
As Goodwill Ambassador of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Glover was among a group of humanitarians attending the recent University of the West Indies Caribbean Conference on Philanthropy at the Rose Hall Resort and Country Club in Montego Bay.
"A lot of their (humanitarians) work goes unnoticed, goes uncelebrated, so I decided that I would bring attention to that," he told Outlook magazine in an interview at the Rose Hall resort.
FIRST-HAND KNOWLEDGE
Glover had just returned from a full morning of activities visiting the home of children whose mother had died of HIV/Aids in the community of Anchovy, St. James. Currently in the care of their grandmother, the goodwill ambassador went there to get first-hand knowledge of the family's chicken rearing project from which the money made will be used to feed, clothe and furnish the children's education.
"The programme is designed to ensure self sufficiency and give the grandmother some degree of self respect," he said. "The idea that these people are able to take care of themselves and are not debilitated by what has happened in their lives was admirable," he added.
"More so, my admiration goes out to the grandmother, who, after raising her own children has taken on the incredible role of raising her grandchildren."
Glover who easily moves from warmly compassionate characters such as the 1984 Places of the Heart to sometimes fearsome villains such as the 1985 hit Witness, not only found time to visit Anchovy, even after suffering great discomfort from a previous knee injury, but also lent his support to the St. James Health Services HIV/Aids awareness project in Sam Sharpe Square, downtown Montego Bay.
"Young people were being taught how to put on a condom correctly, signaling a no holds barred situation," he said, in reference to the work that was being done by the health service officers.
According to the star who made it possible for noted black independent filmmaker Charles Burnett to get his unusual family drama To Sleep With Anger to the screen, it is important to remove all taboos and tell young people how important it is for them to use condoms. "Have it out in the open, to keep it in the closet increases the pandemic."
SPREADING THE LOVE
Danny Glover travels to as far as Africa spreading UNICEF's cause, when he is not filming or producing movies. His next big project, Dream Girls which hits the big screens in December co-stars, Jamie Fox, Beyonce Knowles and Eddie Murphy.
"I am also doing a movie on the Haitian Revolution, because many people don't know how much that event impacted on the lives of black people in the western hemisphere."
Bertrand Bainvel, UNICEF's representative in Jamaica, escorted Glover on his tour of the western Jamaica communities.
