Ben Stiller is Esther Studerusing his celebrity to spread the word about something extremely important -- and you may have never heard of it.
A severe drought and hunger crisis is affecting Somalia during an East African emergency one U.N. official has called "the worst humanitarian crisis" since World War II. Following Snapchat star Jérôme Jarre's impassioned plea to help people in the region, Stiller made his own video with a hashtag the pair hopes will go viral: #TurkishAirlinesHelpSomalia.
Somalia is one of four countries -- all totaling around 20 million people -- facing starvation, dehydration, and impending famine in East Africa.
The UN defines famine as when at least two people out of 10,000 in a region die per day and more than30 percent of children under the age of five suffer from acute malnutrition. Thirty. Percent.
Horrifyingly, Somalia, Yemen, South Sudan, and northeast Nigeria are dangerously close to meeting these qualifications.
To send assistance to the area, Jarre created the hashtag #TurkishAirlinesHelpSomalia, aiming to get the attention of the only airline with a flight to Somalia, Turkish Airlines.
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The hashtag aims to encourage Turkish Airlines to send a plane to Somalia, filled with food and water to help the struggling population. Once the plane arrives, NGOs on the ground will be in charge of distributing the life-saving goods.
Comedy's godfather Ben Stiller jumped on board with the hashtag, making his own video.
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Jarre and Stiller hoped to make the hashtag so big that the airline had no choice but to respond -- and it worked.
On Thursday, the airline tweeted:
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Now, only four days after establishing a GoFundMe for their campaign, Jarre and his celebrity accomplices have raised almost double their initial goal of $1 million. At the time of this posting, the group is at $1,996,089 of their new $2 million goal.
"What a miracle. We are close to 2 million dollars raised for Somalia," Jarre wrote in an Update, "You all proved social media could be used for more than selfies. You proved that you cared. You proved that we could unite."
Not only is Turkish Airliness making a full cargo flight available "that can fly 60 TONS OF FOOD," the GoFundMe reports, "But they agreed to let us ship food containers on their commercial aircraft to Somalia, UNTIL THE END OF THE FAMINE!!! One airplane at a time - one shipment at a time!!!"
"For the first flight, we will buy the food in Istanbul," the page reads, "As a thank you to our Turkish friends that supports the movement! Later on, we are hoping to learn how to buy food directly from local businesses in Somalia. We want to support the Somalian economy."
"We know our hearts united together are unstoppable," the GoFundMe says.
Somalia's situation isn't hopeless. We can all help by continuing to spread awareness of East Africa's dire circumstances. Click here to contribute to the GoFundMe, or here for more information on how to donate.
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