Charity Pioneer

An online campaign to provide free lunch to impoverished students was selected the Most Influential Charity Program at the Seventh China Charity Award. Deng Fei, a reporter from Hong Kong-based Phoenix Weekly magazine, is one of the founders of the program. Launched in April 2011, the program had provided free lunches for 15,000 children across China from April to December in 2011. The program had received $2.86 million in donations by the end of 2011.

Singing Sensation

New singing sensation Zahara scaled new heights at the annual South Africa Music Awards, where she scooped eight awards. Touted as the new Miriam Makeba, Zahara emerged as a village girl from the Eastern Cape, to receiving glowing recognition at the awards event at Sun City for her platinum-selling debut album, Loliwe.