Shakira is using her baby shower as an opportunity to help children around the world.
The pregnant "Hips Don't Lie" singer has teamed up with UNICEF again to promote the organization's "World Baby Shower" initiative, which benefits poverty-stricken children and mothers by setting up a registry of items for family members and friends to purchase through UNICEF.
The former
Voice coach first participated in the campaign when she was expecting her first child Milan in 2012. "Your generosity made the last World Baby Shower with
UNICEF a huge success! Let's see if we can help even more kids in need this year," she captioned a shot on Facebook.
In it, Shakira is all smiles in a floral-embellished dress, as she and her soccer player beau Gerard Pique wrap their arms around their smiley son. She also posted another shot of Gerard palming her pregnant belly.
"Two years ago, Gerard and I had the idea of putting together a different kind of baby shower to celebrate the birth of our first baby-- we wanted to give something to other parents and babies around the world, who live in conditions of extreme poverty and vulnerability but whose lives can be improved greatly by small contributions from others," she wrote on another post on Facebook.
"Having worked with
UNICEF in the past and knowing the kind of reach and expertise that they have in these areas, we worked together to launch a baby shower campaign in which people could buy "inspired gifts" comprised of life-saving items to help babies around the world survive and thrive," she continued. "That initiative was a great success."
According to the singer, they raised 3.8 tons of therapeutic food packets to save kids from severe malnutrition, nearly 100k polio vaccines, 200k rehydrating salts, and 1k mosquito nets to protect kids from malaria.
"Now that we are about to be parents for the second time, we want to take it one step further: by making baby showers with a philanthropic bent accessible to everyone," she continued. "Thanks to social media, celebrities are not the only ones who are able to make a real change. Now you can contribute so that baby showers that give to other children become a new global trend."
"There are millions of kids in the world who die daily from preventable causes, and with your help we want to change this permanently. While we are thrilled with the results of the first run, we would like that long after our own son is born, thousands of kids continue to receive the aid they need."
To participate, visit
worldbabyshower.org and either buy a gift to help children like first aid kits, basic family water kits and more. Or, host your own baby shower to help.