All of Rihanna's charitable work got recognized in a major way.
The pop icon accepted Harvard University's prestigious Humanitarian of
the Year award Tuesday at the Cambridge, Mass., university, where she
began the ceremony celebrating her inspirational philanthropic
undertakings with a lighthearted joke.
"So I made it to Harvard," Rihanna quipped, flipping her hair as the
audience roared with applause. "Never thought I'd be able to say that in
my life, but it feels good."
Harvard University named the "Work" singer the recipient of its illustrious honor last week, citing her commitment to helping citizens in her native Barbados.
Rihanna, 29, built a modern oncology and nuclear medicine center at a
hospital in the Caribbean island nation to provide breast cancer
diagnosis and treatment options for locals. She also founded the Clara
and Lionel Foundation Scholarship Program to financially assist students
from the Caribbean to attend schools in America.
The singer explained what she believed it meant to be a humanitarian during her rousing speech Tuesday.
"All you need to do is help one person, expecting nothing in return," the singer said. "To me, that is a humanitarian."
"What that little girl watching those commercials didn't know is that
you don't have to be rich to be a humanitarian, you don't have to be
rich to help somebody. You don't have to be famous, you don't even have
to be college educated ... You just do whatever you can to help in any
way that you can."
Previous recipients of Harvard's Humanitarian of the Year award include
actor James Earl Jones, Nobel Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai and
farmworker rights advocate Dolores Huerta.
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