American YouTuber and philanthropist, Jimmy Donaldson, popularly known as MrBeast, has responded to criticism from an American over his decision to fund the construction of a surgical facility in the Central region of Ghana to aid in medical treatment for children.
The facility, built in partnership with NGO, Ghana Make a Difference (GMAD), aims to provide surgical and medical care to children formerly trafficked into Ghana’s fishing industry and need proper health care.
In a video shared on April 6, MrBeast announced the completion of the state-of-the-art surgical center within the GMAD compound, stating that his decision was necessitated by desperate need of medical care for children in the organization’s shelter.
“There were extremely long wait times at the nearest hospitals and children in the GMAD program were struggling to access medical treatment,” he explained.
The GMAD Surgical Centre initiative is part of MrBeast’s broader mission to fight child slavery and child labour in Africa. This is the latest in a string of humanitarian projects which his nonprofit organisation, Beast Philanthropy has undertaken.
Since its launch in 2021, GMAD has opened a food bank, funded surgeries for the visually impaired, and distributed thousands of shoes to underprivileged children.
However, despite the project being widely applauded on YouTube, MrBeast’s announcement has caused some backlash from users on social media platforms. One commenter on X (formerly Twitter) wrote, “How about you help Americans if you’re gonna virtue signal for profit?”
MrBeast quoted the tweet and responded: “We do routine food drives in America and give millions of meals away for free to Americans each year,” he retorted. “If I listed out all the projects we’ve done in America this tweet would be a book. Yet every time I help people in Africa, my top reply is ‘I don’t help my own country’ lol.”
