HAITI: Hip hop star Wyclef Jean was given a hero's welcome in one of Haiti's most destitute slums on Monday, riding the shoulders of his cheering countrymen to the site of a small business project he helped develop.
On his first trip to Haiti since being named an ambassador by President Rene Preval in January, the musician met legislators and accompanied Czech model Petra Nemcova to a school in the impoverished neighborhood where he was born.
Jean, who moved to Brooklyn as a young boy is here to try and help his countrymen.At a luncheon crowd of businessmen, the U.N. envoy and nearly every major foreign ambassador for aid.
In the port slum of Cite Soleil, Jean, who had success as a member of the Grammy winning group The Fugees and a solo artist, was carried along by a crowd of 1,000 people who yelled his name and danced past bullet scarred shacks and the smell of open sewers. At one point, Jean bowed his head in silent prayer.
Nemcova, who founded her own charity after she was injured and her boyfriend killed in a catastrophic Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, joined Jean in visiting the slum's new Voila cell phone store and an adjacent cooperative sponsored by Jean's charity group, Yele Haiti.
The cooperative restaurant _ one of 10 planned for Port au Prince will employ 15 local women when it opens in December, selling meals from about $0.70 to US 1.40 (¤.96).
Jean, who arrived for the three day visit Saturday, said his next step as ambassador will be to set up a lobbying office in Washington to promote development in Haiti.
