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<\/p>\nBOGOT\u00c1, Colombia — Colombian superstar\u00a0Shakira\u00a0made a surprise visit to a hard-hit region of her home country Monday, announcing multiple commitments to rebuild schools and a university there after Colombia\u00a0suffered a devastating earthquake last week.<\/p>\n
The globally recognized \u201cHips Don’t Lie\u201d musician toured damaged schools in Quibd\u00f3, the capital of the Colombian province of Choc\u00f3, an area where roughly 40 schools completely collapsed and hundreds more were affected.<\/p>\n
“What worries me the most is that schools are not rebuilt once this emergency is over,\u201d Shakira told journalists after visiting with students, hugging and taking photos with them. \u201cEvery day that children don\u2019t go to school is a day they miss out on their future.\u201d<\/p>\n
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She was accompanied by\u00a0Howard Buffett, son of billionaire philanthropist Warren Buffett and\u00a0longtime donor to Colombia who has helped Shakira set up schools there before. The Howard G. Buffett foundation will collaborate with Shakira’s Fundaci\u00f3n Pies Descalzos, or Barefoot Foundation, to reconstruct 10 schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen she calls, I come,\u201d Buffett said during the visit.<\/p>\n
The singer also said she would focus her \u201cpersonal efforts\u201d on rebuilding a severely damaged technological university in Choc\u00f3, and announced pledges of $500,000 each from the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund and Live Nation and $250,000 from CAF Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean toward rebuilding schools and getting children back into classrooms.<\/p>\n
The 7.4 magnitude quake on Aug. 10 struck a vast swath of western Colombia, killing at least 287 people and destroying more than 26,000 dwellings, authorities said. The government has said 194 people are missing, while other civilian-run databases\u00a0put the number at more than 4,100. Thousands of educational centers were affected.<\/p>\n
The epicenter was in Choc\u00f3, one of Colombia’s poorest regions and where at least 3,100 homes were destroyed, according to the regional government’s latest report Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a place I love, a place where I\u2019ve seen our students grow in our classrooms,\u201d Shakira said in a video posted on X by the Colombian news outlet La FM.<\/p>\n
Her foundation, which focuses on educational access for youths in Colombia, has been in Choc\u00f3 for 22 years, running two schools from which hundreds of students have graduated. \u201cI really want to see it rebuild again,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Aid groups and officials are still assessing the damage in Choc\u00f3, an area the size of Switzerland where communication and travel are challenging. The province has few roads linking it to the rest of the country, and its towns and villages are connected mostly by rivers and unpaved roads.<\/p>\n
Most of Choc\u00f3’s 600,000 inhabitants live in poverty, according to figures published last year by Colombia\u2019s national government, and it is largely inhabited by Indigenous tribes and Afro Colombian communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is not a way to alleviate the pain of so many, there are no magic solutions,” Shakira, 49, said during her visit to a large high school in Quibd\u00f3.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut what there is, is commitment to be here alongside those from Choc\u00f3, to not abandon El Choc\u00f3 like it historically has been abandoned, until every Colombian and every person from Choc\u00f3 can return to their normal lives like they deserve and all the children can return to their schools and dream of the futures they deserve,” she said.<\/p>\n
The Grammy award winner known for hits like \u201cWhenever, Wherever,\u201d \u201cLa Tortura,\u201d and the 2026 FIFA\u00a0World Cup anthem \u201cDai Dai\u201d\u00a0is a longtime supporter of educational access and advancement. She recently\u00a0headlined the halftime show of the World Cup\u00a0final match in July and performed in May on Brazil\u2019s Copacabana Beach to a\u00a0crowd of 2 million.<\/p>\n
After Venezuela\u2019s twin earthquakes in June, Shakira announced the\u00a0FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund\u00a0would commit\u00a0$500,000 to education recovery there.<\/p>\n
Her announcement Monday is the latest of many commitments from prominent Colombians and other Latin American artists to help Colombia and Venezuela. On Sunday,\u00a0Marc Anthony and Chayanne joined dozens of other artists\u00a0at a Miami benefit concert and live fundraiser for both countries’ earthquake relief.<\/p>\n
Colombian singer\u00a0Karol G\u00a0pledged to match fan donations to her Con Cora Foundation during her three-night run at SoFi Stadium near Los Angeles last weekend. She will also join Maluma, Sebasti\u00e1n Yatra and others at a benefit concert in Bogot\u00e1 this Sunday.<\/p>\n
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An earlier correction stated Shakira committed to building 10 new schools, not rebuilding 10 schools. She and Buffett are helping reconstruct the schools, not building new ones.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Gabriela Aoun Angueira reported from San Diego.<\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a9 2026 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOGOT\u00c1, Colombia — Colombian superstar\u00a0Shakira\u00a0made a surprise visit to a hard-hit region of her home country Monday, announcing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":817987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[347017,4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-817986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-347017","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}