Rihanna has been named Humanitarian of the Year by Harvard University. The pop singer attended a ceremony at the Cambridge, MA school on February 28 to receive the award.
The University noted that she has been given the award for her charitable work for women’s health and for young girls’ education, The Harvard Gazette reports. “Rihanna has charitably built a state-of-the-art center for oncology and nuclear medicine to diagnose and treat breast cancer at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Bridgetown, Barbados,” Dr. S. Allen Counter, director of the Harvard Foundation says.
He continues: “She has also created the Clara Lionel Foundation Scholarship Program (named for her grandmother and grandfather) for students attending college in the US from Caribbean countries, and supports the Global Partnership for Education and Global Citizen Project, a multi-year campaign which will provide children with access to education in over 60 developing countries, giving priority to girls, and those affected by lack of access to education in the world today.”
“In 2014, Rihanna became the Global Partnership for Education Global Ambassador. It is for these philanthropic initiatives and other acts of compassionate sharing that the students and faculty of the Harvard Foundation chose to honor Rihanna with the 2017 Humanitarian of the Year Award.”
Watch her acceptance speech below, which begins at 1:14:00.
