Rihanna’s Clara Lionel Foundation, Jay-Z’s Shawn Carter Foundation, and Twitter and Square CEO Dorsey’s #startsmall on Wednesday announced additional joint grants totalling more than $6.2 million that will fund COVID-19 rapid response efforts protecting vulnerable populations with a focus on New York and some international communities.
Outside the U.S., the grants will be distributed to the following:
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières to support efforts in hard-to-reach and vulnerable areas of the world.
Direct Relief will support the purchasing of testing cartridges to build COVID-19 testing capacity in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Grenada, Dominica, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Antigua and Barbuda.
The money will also support medicine kits for hospital ICUs to over five locations throughout the Caribbean.
Also as part of Wednesday’s grant news, the UBS Optimus Foundation has committed to matching 100 percent of a $1 million grant with an additional $1 million dedicated to Doctors Without Borders. The multi-million-dollar grants from Rihanna, Jay-Z and Dorsey follow earlier donations during the current crisis.
