Isaac Hayes You may know Isaac Hayes as an Oscar and Grammy Award winning musician-composer, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, radio host or television and movie actor, but World Literacy Crusade knows him as a friend and humanitarian – and its international spokesperson. Throughout the years Isaac Hayes has used his inimitable voice to champion literacy efforts and other social betterment causes around the globe. In addition to his ardent support of the World Literacy Crusade, Hayes devotes much of his time to charitable causes through the Isaac Hayes Foundation (IHF), founded in May 1999, to support global causes that serve community needs in health care, economic, community, environmental and human development. The group has participated in celebrity benefit concerts, like Jam For Literacy at the House Of Blues in Los Angeles, Literacy Links 2000, a middle school program in Memphis, and the Crusaders, a volunteer team of exhibition basketball players from around the country who put on benefit shows for a variety of causes. He and Lisa Marie Presley, a lifelong friend and fellow Scientologist, established a mission for the organization in their hometown of Memphis. There they started a Learning Education Ability Program (Leap Program) Center, an after school program that teaches Memphis youth how to read, write and study. In 1992, Hayes was appointed Honorary King for Development of the Ada Tradition area in Ghana in Western Africa. There, his official name is Nene (King) Katey Ocansey I, and he is charged with improving literacy as well as spurring industrial and economic growth. In the summer of 2000, Hayes opened a school in Ghana designed to link children in Africa with those in American inner cities via the Internet. The 8,000 square foot facility, called NekoTech, not only delivers general and health education and computer technology, it also houses an affiliate of the World Literacy Crusade. |
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