How an Australian humanitarian and Lady Gaga created the word’s biggest isolation show

As with so many great ideas, the Global Citizen/World Health Organisation's Together At Home concert series required the intervention of a mum.

As the economic and health ramifications of COVID-19 intensified, the United Nations asked Hugh Evans, the Australian chief executive of advocacy group Global Citizen, for help.

Global Citizen CEO, Australian humanitarian Hugh Evans.Credit:Pip Cowley

“We received a call from the UN, they asked Global Citizen to respond to COVID-19,” Evans said.

The organisation has had significant success tackling poverty by harnessing the power of popular culture to encourage young people in particular to become citizen advocates.

Global Citizen says it has more than 10 million active monthly members. Members collect points by contacting local MPs about important issues, conducting surveys or posting on social media. They can use the points to go in the running to win concert tickets or magazine subscriptions.

Singer Lady Gaga at the 2019 Oscars.Credit:Invision/AP

At the same time as the UN asked Global Citizen to activate its network, the World Health Organisation's director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, turned to one of his contacts.

“Dr Tedros called Lady Gaga’s mum Cynthia who is a WHO Goodwill Ambassador for mental health and asked her if her daughter might want to be involved,” Evans said.

The conversations turned into the Global Citizen/World Health Organisation Together At Home concert series.

Chris Martin was the first to try it; performing Coldplay hits from his living room via Instagram Live to thousands of fans similarly stuck in their homes. Frank Ocean, Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello, H.E.R, Jennifer Hudson, Gloria Gaynor and Australian artists Guy Sebastian, G Flip and Vance Joy soon followed.

The Together At Home concerts have so far raised more than $35 million for the World Health Organisation’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, which has been used to buy personal protective equipment for hospitals in 65 countries and diagnostic testing and to train community health workers.

But a bigger project was building in the background. Lady Gaga was on board to curate a major international concert to be beamed from the living rooms of the stars into the living rooms of a world stuck in isolation.

From 10am (AEST) on Sunday, April 19, Gaga will be joined by Keith Urban, Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, Alanis Morissette, Chris Martin, Andrea Bocelli, Billie Eilish, Elton John, Eddie Vedder and more for a fundraising concert that will be broadcast globally. Mr Evans, who grew up in Melbourne and now lives in New York, said the show's message of support for frontline health care workers was particularly important at this time.

“This special will come two days after what is by some estimates the peak number of deaths in the US and at this particular point in time I think we need to focus on those who are working tirelessly to care for the community,” he said.

The One World: Together At Home event will be broadcast on digital platforms as well as on television in Australia on Network Ten and MTV.

More information is available at globalcitizen.org/togetherathome/

Source: Read Full Article