French Vine and Snapchat star Jerome Jarre has nearly reached his goal of raising $1 million to fly food and aid to Somalia after just 19 hours thanks to the power of social media.
Joined by Ben Stiller and American YouTube star Casey Neistat, the Go Fund Me page has already raised $889,288 at the time of writing in less than 24 hours.
The drought in Somalia has caused an historic famine that is affecting at least 5 million people; in early March 110 people from the same region died within 48 hours according to the country’s prime minister.
After Jerome read about the famine he set up a movement called Love Army For Somalia with the hope that social media pressure may be able to convince Turkish Airlines, the only company to fly to the African country, to use one flight to send a shipment of aid and food, ‘providing immediate relief for immediate need’.
Donate money to the fund HERE at Go Fund Me.
The issue was then bought to Stiller’s attention – Jerome starred in Zoolander 2 with the actor – and Stiller shared their cause on Twitter.
Turkish Airlines agreed and have now made available one cargo flight which will take 60 tonnes of food to the region on March 27, as well as allowing Love Army For Somalia to ship food containers on commercial aircrafts to the country until the end of the famine.
The time frame led to the group giving themselves a ten-day target, which they are now expected to hit in less than one day.
The group have teamed up with American Refugee Committee (ARC),a non-governmental organisation currently on the ground in Somalia, and all the money raised will go towards rice, vegetable cooking oil, nutritional biscuits, flour, sugar and porridge.
Writing on his Go Fund Me page, Jerome said: ‘For the first flight, we will buy the food in Istanbul, as a thank you to our Turkish friends that supports the movement. Later on, we are hoping to learn how to buy food directly from local businesses in Somalia. We want to support the Somalian economy.
‘For water, we’ve learned from multiple NGOs on the ground that the most sustainable thing to do is get water trucks to be delivered.
‘Each water truck is about $250 and about 2000 liters. Those 2000 litters will support approximately 100 families of 6 people.’
‘What we want to do together with you isn’t like anything done in the past,’ the team wrote on the campaign page.
‘We are promising you, the makers of this movement, full transparency…you will know where every dollar went, you will know all the successes of our mission, and all the struggles.’
Love this as much as we do? Like Metro Entertainment on Facebook for more dazzling stories on your news feed.
MORE : The YouTuber Red Nose Day #RedOut isn’t going down well with fans
MORE : Unboxing videos: Are your kids watching toys being unwrapped on YouTube?
Share this with