Shakira concert to help hometown children

Pop diva Shakira is to take to play a charity concert in her hometown to build an arts school for 1,800 children forced to flee their homes by Colombia’s civil war.

The concert, part of her worldwide Oral Fixation tour, will be held on November 15 in the Caribbean port city of Barranquilla.

It is being billed as a festive homecoming for the hip-shaking international superstar who last month was nominated for five Latin Grammy awards.

The English and Spanish bilingual school will bear the name of Shakira’s Pies Descalzos (Spanish for Bare Feet) foundation.

The school will open in 2008 in La Playa, a poor suburb of Barranquilla where 45% of the residents are children – only about half of whom attend school.

La Playa’s 21,500 residents are among the estimated three million people internally displaced by the 50-year conflict between left-wing rebels, far-right paramilitary groups and army troops.

Tickets for Shakira’s concert in Barranquilla start at under €6 each, a far cry from the up to €150 ticket price charged at two more Colombian dates in Bogota and the southern city of Cali.

Shakira’s foundation already helps 3,380 children living in three other communities of internally displaced persons.

Shakira, 29, has enjoyed global success with hits Whenever, Wherever and the number one single Hips Don’t Lie.