Film, Music and Literary Talents Spearhead Annual Global Media Campaign for the World's Most Disadvantaged Children

Film, Music and Literary Talents Spearhead Annual Global Media Campaign for the World's Most Disadvantaged Children

LONDON, November 15/PRNewswire/ --

- Eight Film Stars Join Campaign to Help The World's Most
Disadvantaged Children

- Funds Raised for 200 Children's Charity Projects Worldwide
Helping 400,000 Children Each Year

- US$100m Fundraising Target in First Year and US$1bn Over 10
Years

- Campaign Making 500 Million People Aware of Children's Plight
Each Year

- Developing a Donor Community of Tens of Millions Helping
Children

- Legendary Music Directors Sign Up for Global Broadcast Event
in Los Angeles, June 2008

- Acclaimed Authors Donate Short Stories to Campaign

- CBS to Broadcast Two Primetime Specials in June 2008: "Why
Listen" and "Listen Live"

Tony Hollingsworth, Executive Producer of the Listen Campaign, today
announced the launch of Listen Campaign 1: "Listen is an annual, global media
campaign bringing together the finest creative artists in film, music and the
arts to raise awareness and funds for 200 children's charity projects around
the world." Fundraising broadcasts in 60 countries will generate a projected
US$100m in Listen's first year and US$1bn over 10 years.

Creative artists supporting The Listen Campaign already include:

Film: Natalie Portman, Samuel L Jackson, Ashley Judd, Ben Kingsley,
Jessica Lange, Brooke Shields, Kurt Russell, Goldie Hawn. Literature:
Professor Wole Soyinka (Nigeria), Ishmael Beah (Sierra Leone), Patricia Melo
(Brazil), Tim Lott (UK), Xiaolu Guo (China), Marina Lewycka (Ukraine). Music
Directors: Dave Stewart, Don Was.

Film stars including Natalie Portman, Goldie Hawn and Samuel L Jackson
have visited children's charity projects in India, Egypt, Peru, the US and
Uganda to be filmed listening to children's stories. Six short "webisodes" of
these visits are now online at http://www.listencampaign.com. CBS Television
will air these stories in the first of two primetime specials entitled "Why
Listen" for broadcast in June 2008, with 48 Hours' Susan Zirinsky overseeing
as Executive Producer.

Six acclaimed authors - including African Nobel Prize Winner Professor
Wole Soyinka and Ishmael Beah, author of New York Times' bestseller "A Long
Way Gone" - are donating short stories to Listen to be featured in newspapers
and magazines around the world as the campaign unfolds.

The culmination of the Listen Campaign is "Listen Live" - a global
broadcast event staged in Los Angeles in June, which will see music stars
collaborating to perform one-off covers of the world's best known hits. Dave
Stewart of Eurythmics fame and legendary producer Don Was (Rolling Stones)
have already signed up to Music Director the event and headline artists will
be announced soon.

Developed by London's Tribute Third Millennium over seven years with an
investment of US$8m, Listen is carefully designed as an annual campaign using
TV, radio, web, print and mobile to reach a global audience of 500 million in
60 countries. The Listen Campaign's key message is for people to listen to
the rights and needs of the world's most disadvantaged children. Each annual
campaign includes twenty major news items leading up to the global broadcast
event.

Listen provides a media platform for creative artists to use their
talents to bring the stories of disadvantaged children to the world. The
public will be provided with a wealth of music, art, stories, and films, as
well as the down to earth stories of children living with Poverty, Disease,
Natural Disaster, Exploitation, War and AIDS.

Over seventy of world charities nominated 200 children's projects to
benefit from Listen's fundraising. Listen's fundraising model is unique,
based on grass roots research with donors in many countries. In order that
the public knows exactly where its donations will be used, every one of the
200 beneficiary projects will be pre-declared before the public are asked to
donate. Listen guarantees that 100% of donations go directly to the Listen
Charity, with none going to fund the media campaign or broadcast event, and
that 90% of donations will reach projects in the field. Every donor will
receive five feedback reports over two years on how their money is being used
to change children's lives.

"Pre-declaring the projects and reporting back on the effect of the
donors' money is a key difference of The Listen Campaign to other major
international fundraising campaigns," Hollingsworth continued.
"Pre-declaration and impact reporting will build public trust and the
creative artists will generate interest leading to a sustained community of
supporters".

Note to Editors:

Please end article with http://www.listencampaign.com .

PHOTOGRAPHS

- Stills of all stars available upon request.

- EPK available on the work of film stars and music directors.

MORE INFO ON LISTEN at http://www.listencampaign.com

More info on Tribute at http://www.tribute3ml.com

More info on Tony Hollingsworth http://www.tonyhollingsworth.com

Source: The Listen Campaign

LISTEN PR contact: Ph: +44(0)20-8939-6464, Email: press@listencampaign.com

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