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Sport Relief to drop celebrity-led appeal films after ‘poverty tourism’ backlash

Sport Relief and Comic Relief are set to drop their use of celebrity-led appeals after an aid watchdog described them as ‘poverty tourism’.

Last year a film fronted by Ed Sheeran for Comic Relief which saw him visit Liberia, won a Radi-Aid award for fundraising campaigns focused on stereotypes, with judges criticising the clip for being ‘basically about Ed Sheeran’.

The charity’s chief executive Liz Warner told The Guardian that campaigns would instead be fronted by the people the organisation was aiming to help.

“You’ll see the films we put into Sports Relief are a step towards that, towards change,” she said.

'White saviour': Ed Sheeran visits homeless young people in Liberia (BBC )
'White saviour': Ed Sheeran visits homeless young people in Liberia (BBC )

“People talking in the first person in their own voices, with local heroes and local heroines talking to us about the work they’re doing.

“You won’t see a celebrity standing in front of people talking about them. You’ll see people talking for themselves.”

The publication reports that a film in the upcoming Sport Relief telethon on street children in Kampala will be introduced by Rio Ferdinand, but the sportsman won't be featured in the clip and Ugandan aid worker Elvis will explain the difficulties faced in the region.

It comes after MP David Lammy penned an article in The Guardian criticising the charity for ‘blurring Africa’s 54 separate nations’ and presenting the residents of those countries as ‘victims to be pitied’.

“The show has the chance to deal with complexity, and it can afford to talk about solutions beyond mosquito nets, food parcels and digging wells,” he wrote.

"It shouldn’t be afraid to talk about the triumphs of African nations as much as it does their challenges, even if those successes aren’t always the result of western charity.

"Comic Relief retains a narrow perspective that fails to convey the bigger picture of progress in the continent."

The Sport Relief 2018 telethon airs Friday, March 23 at 7pm on BBC One.