Wallowing in unspeakable poverty, Malawi is an African nation of 12 million, half of which live on less than a dollar a day, including 1 million orphans.

Victoria Keelan, a local businesswoman, urged pop megastar Madonna to take her philanthropy for children to this new front. Madonna was sold on the idea made her first trip to Malawi in 2006.

With Michael Berg, head of The Kabbalah Centre Charitable Foundation, Madonna founded Raising Malawi, a grassroots charity devoted to rectifying the plight of Malawi. Within a year, the group erected sustainable Millennium Villages, wherein families could procure seeds and fertilizers for farming, medicine, and other needs.

Raising Malawi, under the specific directives of its founder, provides for the education of Malawian girls. They have the added disadvantage of their gender, which prevent them from obtaining formal education and hold them susceptible to gender-based violence.

Due to this, the organization envisioned the Raising Malawi Academy For Girls, a boarding school. When it opens in 2011, the school will prepare girls for tertiary educations in medicine, law, and education. In doing so, the school will become a training ground for future leaders who are expected to address needs in the context of their communities. Future graduates will take on larger domestic roles and marry later than usual, curbing population growth and fertility rates. Well-educated in health concerns, graduates will also be in the position to protect themselves from HIV infection.

Construction will hopefully take place in 2009 and completed in September 2011.

For this project, Madonna has sought the commitments of several notable leaders like Bill Clinton.

On February 2008, Madonna hosted a star-studded fundraiser to benefit both Raising Malawi and UNICEF. Held at the United Nations headquarters in New York City, the fundraiser earned around $5.5 million from tickets and auction proceeds. Celebrity attendees included Gwyneth Paltrow, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, Jennifer Lopez, Heidi Klum, Demi Moore, Martha Stewart, Donna Karan, Donald Trump, Rosie O’Donnell, Gwen Stefani, Jerry Seinfeld, Orlando Bloom, Diane von Furstenberg, Brooke Shields, and Drew Barrymore.

Madonna’s documentary, I Am Because We Are, is for the benefit of the Raising Malawi all-girls school.