StyleWorks and other celebrity stuff

I have this really strange obsession, where if I am really into a movie and its actors, I research everything about them. Their family, their wife (or husband), their kids, where they went school etc. It's a form of online stalking, I guess, and since all the info is out there, I generally get my fill of trivia.

For instance, did you know that Jada Pinkett-Smith sings in a heavy metal band? Hmmm..

But that's not what I wanted to talk about. I want to talk about Malaak Compton-Rock, wife of comedian Chris Rock, whose new movie I Think I Love My Wife, promises to be a hoot.

Malaak Compton-Rock, an arts management graduate from Howard University, doesn't spend her husband's fortune on shopping at Tiffany's and embarassing herself in front of the papparazzi. Instead she founded and runs StyleWorks, a non-profit organisation that offers free comprehensive grooming services to women who are moving from the welfare system to work.

These women, usually single parents, unemployed, and in financial dire straits, don't have money to blow for haircuts and make up. They are too busy trying to feed children and find a safe place to live. And this is one of the factors that contribute to the poverty trap - where people have no self-esteem to get themselves out of the self-defeating system.

So what Malaak does is work with companies that manufacture hair care and make up, gathers pools of volunteer hairstylists and make-up artists and give these women a make over. And teaches them how to recreate it at home. That way, they hold their well-coiffed heads up high and get jobs they otherwise won't even have the confidence to try for.

Can you say, "Wow?"

I know external appearances are superficial and it's what's inside a person that counts, yadda yadda yadda... but anyone that has ever had to go a job interview with old shoes, a ripped stocking or even spinach caught in their teeth knows exactly what such a programme can do for your self-esteem.

The hairstylists and make up artists also act as mentors for these women and spend no less than 5 hours with them before they even start with the make over. Malaak works hand in hand with a job placement programme, so she really takes this whole thing the full cycle.

Kudos to her, and to Chris for supporting her work! I am proud just to know there are human beings like that. Makes all that "save the whales" malarkey sound so trite, doesn't it?