The government of Iceland agreed at a cabinet meeting on Friday to contribute ISK 3 million (USD 25,000, EUR 19,000) towards a concert organized by the charity 46664 in Iceland in the autumn of 2012.
Nelson Mandela. Source: Wikipedia.
The charity promotes HIV/AIDS awareness in the name of former South African President and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Nelson Mandela, as well as other humanitarian issues.
The City of Reykjavík had already agreed to the disbursement of ISK 2 million (USD 17,000, EUR 13,000) to the same cause, Morgunblaðið reports.
“We will now launch operations and start preparing,” filmmaker Sigurjón Einarsson, who leads an Icelandic group involved in organizing the event, told Fréttablaðið.
“We were of course dependent on this political support as well as general support because this is a big international project, which certainly has a political connection. The first step is to coincide our plans with those of various other parties, such as the tourism industry, Harpa and Laugardalshöll,” Sigurjón added.
The charity’s representatives were interested in locating next year’s concert in Iceland, Sigurjón stated. “There is considerable intent within the charity that Iceland be in the spotlight next year. The program will also be a bit scattered, with an event taking place in the spring, another possibly in the summer, but the main concert will be in September.”
Sigurjón said he is pleased that the world will recognize Iceland’s support for humanitarian issues. “I don’t think we should lose ourselves in a discussion about how much we will earn from this. […] The biggest aspect of it is of course to help shed a light on what Nelson Mandela has fought for the past 93 years.”
ESA
