Look To The Stars News: Rachel Hunter

Room 23 Opens The Lives Of Celebrities For Human Rights

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:30:00 -0000

A new book featuring photos of over 100 celebrities will raise money for a human rights project.

Room 23 is the brainchild of entrepreneur and philanthropist Diana Jenkins and depicts a year in the life of a Beverly Hills penthouse suite. Stars to take part in the project and allow themselves to be intimately revealed include George Clooney, Cindy Crawford, Elton John, Dennis Hopper, Larry King, Heidi Klum, Kid Rock, Lindsay Lohan, Ludacris, Moby, Hayden Panettiere, Christian Slater, Sharon Stone and many more.

The book – to be released in 120 countries on September 8 – will benefit the Sanela Diana Jenkins International Human Rights Project, a non-profit entity at the UCLA School of Law that brings war criminals to justice through legal resources and technology. Established by Bosnian-born Diana Jenkins, the project aims at developing groundbreaking approaches to advancing human rights and to training the next generation of human rights lawyers and advocates.

“When good things happen for me, I pay it forward by helping my country,” said Jenkins. “In the Bosnian-Serbian War, people lost homes, cars and money, but the greatest casualty was the loss of family and friends. No one should ever have to be a victim of human rights violations, so that is why I founded the Sanela Diana Jenkins International Human Rights Project.”

Other stars to feature in the book include James Blunt, Rachel Hunter, Peter Wentz, Jerry Weintraub and many more.

To find out more, visit the official website.

Celebrities Give Their Soles To Foster Care Centre

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:30:00 -0000

Written by Elizabeth Willoughby

The first “Foster Soles” online charity auction took place last month to support Hillsides, a Los Angeles foster care and treatment centre.

Foster Soles collected the shoes of dozens of big names, such as Denzel Washington, Elton John, Jake Gyllenhaal and Nicolas Cage, who autographed their footwear before putting them up on the block.

Proceeds of the auction will be used by Hillsides for their programs and in public awareness. Once an orphanage, it is now a private, non-profit centre providing abused children with a safe refuge and advocating for their rights. Hillsides’ website says, “Although [the children] come from all over Southern California and encompass every ethnic and socioeconomic group, they share a common experience – the emotional scars that result from child abuse. With counselling and mental health treatment, children at Hillsides learn that they are not alone, that they are safe and cared for. Six programs constitute the framework for Hillsides treatment services – Residential Treatment, the Education Center, the Family Center and Advocacy.”

The Foster Soles auction kicked off with a festive party where the bidding began and then continued on line through most of May. Billy Joel, Billy Zane, Carmen Electra, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Jack Johnson, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Kelly Slater, Marlee Matlin, Monique Coleman, Rachel Hunter, Rod Stewart and Shia LaBeouf were also among the celebrities that donated to their soles to the cause.

Rachel Hunter Wants To Turn Friday Night Into Family Night

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 11:30:00 -0000

Written by Tim Saunders

Supermodel and actress Rachel Hunter is throwing her support behind a national program to relaunch family values.

Turn Friday Night Into Family Night is an initiative of the Jewish Values Network, an organization that seeks to bring Jewish values to the mainstream culture via the mass media. And this Thursday, February 5, the organization is launching the initiative with a benefit evening in Beverly Hills.

Turn Friday Night Into Family Night seeks to recreate family dinners, and urges parents to give their children a minimum of one night a week as uninterrupted family time. Their recommended program encourages families to give their children a minimum of 2 hours uninterrupted by phone calls, a blaring television, or any kind of outside interference. It also encourages discussion of subjects of significance around the dinner table.

“Family dinners are the centerpiece of a healthy family life,” said Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, Founder of This World: The Jewish Values Network. “It is essential that children be given, at the very least, a single night a week where they can connect with their parents, unwind from the week, and create an intimate and warm family atmosphere. We suggest Friday night because it’s the beginning of the weekend and sets the tone for the rest of the weekend.”

Joining Rachel Hunter at the launch will be Mayor of LA Antonio Villaraigosa and president of the LA City Council Eric Garcetti. The event will take place at the home of Sunny Sassoon at 801 N Alpine Drive, Beverly Hills, at 8pm. More information is available here.

Richard Branson's Rock The Kasbah Event Tonight

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 15:00:00 -0000

Written by Tim Saunders

For once, Sir Richard Branson will not be on stage at his Virgin Unite charity’s Rock The Kasbah event in Los Angeles later tonight, October 23. The business mogul and adventurer is sea-bound in a bid to beat a transatlantic sailing record.

The event will instead be hosted by Dancing With The Stars’ Samantha Harris and will feature performances by Natalie Imbruglia and Island Def Jam recording artist Jon McLaughlin.

The night will include a Moroccan dinner and an auction of epic proportions that will include items such as the chance to stay at Branson’s luxury game park in South Africa, race an Astin Martin around the California, name one of Virgin’s new A320 Airbuses, spend a week on Branson’s Private Paradise in the Virgin Islands, and much more.

Proceeds from the evening will go to Virgin Unite’s domestic and international programs, including the Eve Branson Foundation, set up by Sir Richard’s mother to help women in Morocco generate their own incomes to support their families, and the REGeneration initiative in the US, which helps homeless young people.

Last year’s Rock The Kasbah event – which Sir Richard described as “one of the best parties I’ve ever been to” – was attended by a who’s who of the celebrity world, including Jewel, Rachel Hunter, and Buzz Aldrin.

More information about the event – which will be held at the historic Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel – can be found at the Rock The Kasbah website.

Edited on 24 Oct to reflect Branson’s unexpected non-attendance.

Rachel Hunter Encourages Children To Read

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:30:00 -0000

Written by Tim Saunders

Students at a small school in New Zealand got a lesson in the importance of reading from an international supermodel yesterday.

Model, actress, and Dancing With the Stars alumnus Rachel Hunter launched a new reading initiative at Hautapu School in the North Island and handed over a $20,000 cheque to the Storylines Trust – a charity established to ensure school children in New Zealand have access to books – on Tuesday.

During the launch, Hunter – who was born in New Zealand – read stories to the 6-year-old students and announced that she has partnered with the charity and the Tip Top ice cream company to provide $50,000 worth of books in small parcels to primary schools in an attempt to encourage more people to read aloud to children. She said that New Zealand was a great place for children to learn, and that she used to read for two hours every night when she was growing up.

Hunter was accompanied by her children Liam and Renee, her father Wayne, and fiancé Jarret Stoll.

Natalie Portman Films Documentary On Rwanda's Gorillas

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 09:49:08 -0000

Written by Tim Saunders

Actress Natalie Portman has teamed up with wildlife expert Jack Hanna to make a TV special on the plight of gorillas in Rwanda.

The hour-long documentary, called Gorillas On The Brink, will go to air on the Animal Planet channel on October 26, and will feature the pair as they travel deep into the jungles of the Congo’s Virunga National Park in search of the endangered Mountain Gorilla.

The documentary follows the 26 year old star’s appearance at a gorilla naming ceremony held in Rwanda in July, in which a host of celebrities gathered to name 23 baby gorillas at a Rwandan wildlife sanctuary to raise awareness of the species’ possible extinction. Portman named her gorilla Ahazaza, which means “Future” in the native Rwandan language. Another was named in the memory of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin, who was planning a trip to the African nation before being killed by a stingray while filming a documentary at the Great Barrier Reef in September 2006. His gorilla was named Ingufu, which means “Strength”.

According to figures published by the WWF, there are only 700 Mountain Gorillas left in the world, and just over half of these live around the lush Virunga volcanoes that straddle Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Their populations are being decimated by conflict and poaching, although the efforts of several conservation organizations, such as the African Conservation Program and the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International, are trying to reverse this.

“This is one of the biggest conservation efforts in the world,” said Jack Hanna.

The plight of Rwanda’s Mountain Gorillas first rose to the public’s attention after the 1988 film, Gorillas In The Mist, based on the book of the same name by famed gorilla conservationist, Dian Fossey. They have now become a tourist attraction for the war-stricken nation, although they are still at risk from fighting militias. Visitors pay up to $500 to gain access to the Virunga National Park, and the nation earned $36 million from tourism in 2006. The Government aims to raise $100 million per year from gorilla tourism by 2010.

“We have every good reason to celebrate these gorillas,” said Rosette Rugamba, Director General of the Rwanda Tourism Centre. “The benefits they have brought to our country and people speak volumes.”

Natalie Portman is not the only celebrity involved in the conservation of this unique species. New Zealand-born supermodel and patron of the Born Free Foundation, Rachel Hunter, has also launched a desperate plea to save the animals.

“I am not afraid to say I wept when I saw pictures of the shot gorillas,” she said in a double page advert in Britain’s The Sun newspaper following the publication of gruesome photos of gorillas being slaughtered by poachers. “Charities that work in the area have got together to fund round-the-clock patrols by park rangers for the next three months, but they need more funding to carry on. This is absolutely vital.”

The screening schedule for Gorillas On The Brink can be viewed at http://animal.discovery.com, and more information on the plight of the gorillas, including the very latest news from Rwanda, can be found at www.rwanda-gorillas.com.

Look To The Stars News: Rachel Hunter

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