Post date: Jun 23, 2012 4:50:22 PM
LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (JUNE 21, 2012) (REUTERS) - Black Eyes Peas frontman will.i.am has announced plans to personally donate £500,000 (USD 780,000 EST) to youth charity, The Prince's Trust.
Black Eyes Peas frontman will.i.am donates GBP 500,000 (estimated USD 780,000) to the UK youth charity, The Prince's Trust.
Following a meeting with The Prince of Wales, who is the organisation's president, the musician decided to team up with the charity to help some of the UK's most disadvantaged young people to get their lives on track.
Speaking at a press conference in London on Thursday (June 21), will.i.am said:
"The money that I'm getting for (British talent show) The Voice, I don't need that money you know. I should give that to the people that need it. It's the people's money."
It was after meeting youngsters on a Prince's Trust personal development course in East London in May that will.i.am visited HRH The Prince of Wales at his London home, Clarence House, to discuss how his i.am angel Foundation could support the work of The Prince's Trust.
"It really takes one person, right, that's one person from East London or Brixton to turn into Mark Zuckerberg, and that one person can create so much that it changes that community forever rather than having people run and escape it and never turn back, leaving whatever hood they come from the hood forever. If you nurture some money in the hood, cause it's just a neighbourhood so if we are neighbours the neighbours from far or close bringing opportunities to people so you change their lives, so they change their community around. A hood doesn't have to be a hood. It doesn't have to be a ghetto. But it really takes one person to do that," the artist told the audience.
The donation is intended to help young people build skills for work and enterprise, with a focus on technology.