Didier Drogba Sets Date For Charity Ball
The Didier Drogba Foundation will host its third annual charity ball on March 10th 2012 at The Dorchester, raising funds to support the Chelsea and Ivory Coast striker’s work with his foundation in his home country and throughout Africa.
Drogba, who won the Beyond Sport Humanitarian in Sport Award supported by Virgin Atlantic in 2011, donates his entire earnings from sponsorship to his Foundation and its work in Africa. Beyond Sport also rewarded the striker for his efforts to resolve conflict in Ivory Coast, having twice brought about ceasefires in the country’s civil wars.
Drogba has been an influential figure in the Ivorian peace process for more than five years. His appeal to combatants to lay down their arms, made in the aftermath of the country’s qualification for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, inspired a ceasefire after half a decade of civil war. His actions at the time, and in the years that followed, led to him being named in 2010 as one of the TIME 100, TIME magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
This year, after violence which erupted in the aftermath of elections in Ivory Coast left more than 3,000 people dead over four months of fighting, Drogba agreed to join an 11-man Truth, Reconciliation and Dialogue Commission, inspired by the body that helped South Africa move forward after the end of apartheid, in an effort to secure a lasting peace in Ivory Coast.
The Didier Drogba Foundation, meanwhile, was created in 2007 to provide financial and material support in both health and education to the African people. It has provided help and funding for such structures as the Red Cross throughout Africa and the Page Blanche Institution.
Through Drogba’s contribution of 100% of the money he receives from his sponsors and the creation of an annual charity ball, The Didier Drogba Foundation is currently funding the building of a much-needed hospital in Abidjan.
The charity ball will be held on 10th March at The Dorchester. Enquiries about sponsorship or buying tables can be made to info@thesportsprcompany.com
