Bono’s Work For Product Red And The One Campaign
March 1st, 2012
U2 frontman Bono isn’t only about rock ‘n’ roll. The Irish rocker is also a vocal activist, who has pressured heads of state worldwide to fight poverty in Third World countries. In 2004, he co-founded ONE, a nonpartisan, grassroots advocacy group that fights extreme poverty and curable disease in Africa and other countries by raising public awareness and lobbying political leaders to support programs and policies that improve conditions around the world.
Bono took ONE’s mission corporate in 2006 when he and fellow activist Bobby Shriver founded Product (Red) to raise money to buy drugs for women and children with AIDS in Africa. As part of the program, Bono convinced a number of global brands to sell (Red) products and donate 50 percent of their profits to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculousis and Malaria. Bono serves as a spokesman for the Product (Red) brand, which has raised more than 170 million to fight AIDS in Africa.
As a result of his work for Product (Red) and ONE, Bono received the Legion D’Honneur from the French Government in 2005, was named TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year in 2005 and was knighted in Britain in 2007.