Multiple Grammy award-winner Beyonce has paid a visit to Haiti to look at the progress made since the massive earthquake shattered the French-speaking Caribbean country five years ago.
On Saturday, Haiti UN mission spokeswoman Sophie Boutaud de la Combe said that the American superstar was also able to meet some of the people who were affected by by the 2010 disaster in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation.
According to de la Combe, the singer, who was named Time magazine’s Most Influential Person 2014, visited Haiti with Baroness Valerie Amos, the United Nations’ humanitarian affairs chief and emergency relief coordinator. Pictures taken during the pop queen’s visit to the impoverished country showed her wearing a white T-shirt emblazoned with the name of her charity organization “Bey Good.”
In 2010, shortly after the deadly 7.0 quake, the Council of Fashion Designers of America named Beyonce the official face of their fundraising “Fashion for Haiti” T-shirt. Since then, Forbes’ highest paid woman in music 2014 has been involved in several benefits and fundraisers for the stricken nation.
More than five years after the January 12 catastrophe killed over 250,000 people, maimed countless others, and devastated Haiti’s capital and surrounding areas, the country is still struggling to recover.
It also continues to contend with political strife and outbreaks of cholera, the latter of which were allegedly inadvertently introduced to Haiti by UN aid workers from Nepal in the aftermath of the earthquake.