Afonso Resende Nº 3 10ºD

Bono – a great activist

Paul David Hewson, more known as Bono, is the singer
and writer of the world-famous band U2. He was born on 10 th
May 1960 in Dublin, Ireland. He takes part of the band since he
was attending secondary school. From then on, he has been
using his fame to call their public the attention to many world
Bono
issues.

Bono has met a lot of international leaders and American

politicians in order to discuss issues as developing
countries’ debts, world poverty and AIDS. He has helped in
the creation of two organizations: DATA (Debt AIDS Trade
Africa), whose aim is to combat the HIV and Africa’s
poverty, and ONE, which is a campaign to “make poverty
history” that is supported by more than a hundred non-
profit organizations and millions of people, such as very
famous actors.
In 2005, Bono and his wife Ali Hewson founded EDUN, a
clothing factory. Although it is a for-profit company, its
Bono with the Chanceler of Germany and
the previous Secretary-general of UNO
mission is to promote sustainable employment in developing
regions, specially
Africa.
In the same year, Bono was chosen as “Person of the
Year” by Time Magazine because of his charity works. Besides
this prize, Queen Elizabeth II made him honorary British
knight.
In 2006, he and his group joined the punk band Green
Day to record the song The Saints are coming, whose sales
revenue was used in the reconstruction of New Orleans after
the Hurricane Katrina.

Bono and Queen Elizabeth II

In 2013, he gave a TED conference about being

to John Lennon and whose winnings were used
help Darfur, Sudan.
“factivist” (supports the evidences and facts of actions)
when the subject is to end the world poverty.
In the following year, Bono and the other
members contributed with the title Instant Karma: The
Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur, a
tribute
Concert of U2 to
 Afonso Resende Nº 3 10ºD
In all his career, Bono wrote many U2’s songs, whose topics are mainly politics and religion but, in
many of them, we are able to hear his activist spirit. In fact, this characteristic made him participate in acts
such as Band Aid, Live 8 and Net Aid. Besides that, in almost of U2 shows, Bono made a quick presentation
about world issues in order to awake the audience’s consciousness.
As we have seen, Bono has fought for Human Rights, world peace, economic equality between
countries but, above all, he has concerned about the end of poverty and eradication of diseases such as
AIDS. Therefore, the singer is a great example of an activist who had made the present world better.