Good morning, MTs. Hope you all had a good weekend. A few stories here that caught my eye:

I’ve always loved Shakira’s music and admired her passion for improving the lives of poor children in her native Colombia and across Latin America. But this profile of her in the New York Times Sunday magazine only increases my respect for her. The journalist follows Shakira to a conference that seeks to gain assurance and financial support from governments for early childhood education. Shakira works through ALAS, a non-profit set up by her and various other Latin American singers and performers.

Celebrity philanthropy, rock ’n’ roll philanthropy, is no longer a novelty, but what Shakira and ALAS were trying was indeed new. They were looking to use the power of pop to help the populations not of distant impoverished lands but of the Ibero-American world from which they come. They have a policy focus — early-childhood nutrition, education and medical care — that is on a scale beyond the reach of private charity. It requires the steady effort of the state. It cannot be addressed by rich countries’ check-writing. So the trick is to take pop celebrity, marry it to big business and permanently alter the way Latin American governments help care for the young and the poor. What the golden-haired young woman staring at her laptop was trying to do was a tall order, given the fragility of celebrity influence, the dubious track record of Latin American governments in providing social services and the lengthening shadow of a global recession that was straitening everyone’s budget. But she is not someone whom it would be reasonable to underestimate.

In reading the profile, I learned that Shakira had donated money to build four schools in and around Barranquilla, Colombia, her home city. Wow – talk about putting your money where your mouth is. Definitely worth a read, IMHO.

In other news, this article from The Age examines why so few women have become chefs in restaurants in the past. It’s a combination of reasons – relatively poor pay (a chef can earn around A$50,000 for upwards of 60 hrs/week), unfriendly work hours for women who have families, and a  hostile work environments dominated by men. Some of these things may be changing, including the sexual harassment.

Both Martini and Sibley say kitchens have changed over the past two decades. Sexual harassment is unacceptable. Unwieldy, heavy kitchen machinery has made way for lighter, smaller slicers, mixers and stick blenders, making it physically easier for women and therefore more appealing.

“Who wants to whip Italian meringue by hand or pass hand-chopped chicken through a sieve?” asks Sibley. “Girls aren’t stupid.”

The improved conditions have encouraged more women to train as chefs. Twenty years ago, cookery students at Melbourne’s William Angliss Institute catering college were 80 per cent male; now, males make up 60 per cent of the students.

Have you ever worked as a chef in a restaurant? Have you wanted to but been discouraged by one or more of the above-mentioned factors?

Finally, congratulations to Liza Minelli for winning a Tony award for her show, “Liza’s At The Palace.“ I love that woman.

What’s up with you today, MTs?