Pop star Shakira in Camp Nou: not to watch football, but to fight poverty

With domestic football still on hold due to the current international break, pop star Shakira was the star at Barcelona's Camp Nou Stadium on Tuesday.

The singer, who is married to Barcelona and Spain defender Gerard Pique, was at the ground along with Barcelona Vice-President of Social Affairs, Jordi Cardoner and the La Caixa Foundation in order to present an educational alliance which will see a school (Institution Nuevo Bosque) opened in the Colombian city of Barranquilla.

This school is the seventh belonging to Shakira's Fundacion Pies Descalzos (literally Bare Feet Foundation) to be opened.

Shakira said she had never thought that one day she would use the Camp Nou to present a project, "which means so much to me and to which I have dedicated so much time."

"When we started to build schools in Colombia 20 years ago, we chose the most remote regions where there was nothing. No infrastructure, no roads and no drinking water.

"We built schools where the government had been absent and where thousands of children had no access to quality education. We got the government involved and we managed an almost immediate transformation, with the creation of jobs, a reduction in innutrition and the students responded academically," she said.

Shakira insisted that the conclusion was "if you invest in education, it will work and it is the most important strategy to eradicate poverty," before thanking the football club for its role in helping her project top help people escape the "vicious circle" of poverty. Endit