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Nineteen years ago, Quincy Jones produced charity hit We Are The World to help raise money for Ethiopian famine victims.

On Sunday he is doing it again, this time in Rome, which will be the setting for a huge star-studded concert.

Stars such as Alicia Keys, Norah Jones, Naomi Campbell and Angelina Jolie will be there to launch Jones’ new project We Are The Future.

The concert will help children living in war-torn cities across the globe.

Jones, arguably the most famous record producer in the world, is known as the man behind Michael Jackson’s best-selling albums during the 1980s.

He is also the driving force behind this new project, which is designed to help children in conflict zones around the world by setting up child centres in Rwanda, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Palestine and Sierra Leone, the first of which is already open.

You have to care about the other people now, and especially the plight of the children who are going to be the future Quincy

Despite the many successes of his career to date Quincy Jones is evidently very excited to see his project coming together.

He told the BBC: “Two weeks ago the mayor of Kigali in Rwanda announced the opening of the first We Are The Future centre.

“It’s open! The kids are playing in it right now! But the only way we can secure their future is to create a common destiny.

“We can’t say, ‘Our kids are okay, they’ve got clean clothes, they’ve got education, food every day, I don’t care what happens with the rest.’

“That’s over, that’s over believe me.”

Jones is by no means a music industry guru who organises things from his office.

In June, he was in Baghdad trying to get children in need of medical treatment to hospital in Washington.

Health is one of the ways in which We Are The Future aims to help, as Jones explained.

Alicia Keys is set to perform

“It will adopt six of the most in crisis cities in the world and systematically implement them with a system of support, though the World Bank, through water purification, through agriculture and the World Food Programme, through sports with FIFA, through technology,” he said.

The concert on Sunday evening will take place at Circo Massimo, at the heart of ancient Rome.

It is free and will be broadcast around the world by MTV, to raise the profile of the project and attract future funding. A charity record will also be produced.

Artists from the countries We Are The Future aims to help, such as Noa from Israel, will perform alongside Carlos Santana, Italian singer Zucchero and host of others, while leading figures like Oprah Winfrey, tennis star Serena Williams and Italian footballer Francesco Totti will help present the show.

The concert was first announced last year at a conference organised by the Rome-based Glocal Forum.

‘Charity fatigue’

As part of this different unifying events were held, including football matches with Israelis and Palestinians playing against Tutsis and Hutus, and children from Sarajevo and Belgrade singing “We are the World” together.

For Jones this was a kind of test, to see whether the concert would work, and he left convinced it would: “It just clicked as a family, something magical happened.

“It was meant to be and we decided that the concert like We Are The World would be the great launch, like the exclamation point that launches it all.”

The world has seen lots of charity concerts, but Jones rejects any idea of charity fatigue, believing now it is more important than ever to do all you can.

“You think you can get away with it because you’ve got a nice big house, a barbecue pit and all of that but it’s not true.

“You have to care about the other people now, and especially the plight of the children who are going to be the future. This situation can only get worse if you don’t care.”

Originaly from Source