Roskilde Festival has donated 500,000 kroner to the fight against Ebola in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.
The money has gone to the charity Doctors Without Borders, which is working in six of the regions worst hit by the disease where it has treated 5,200 patients so far.
According to a press release, the charity was an “obvious choice” for the festival to support.
Promoting West African music
The popular music festival is also encouraging fans to download a song from West African artists entitled 'Africa Stop Ebola'.
The song is sung in French and other indigenous languages spoken widely in West Africa, and features well-known artists such as Amadou and Mariam, Tiken Jah Fakoly and Salif Keita.
It can be downloaded from the Roskilde Festival websites, with all profits going to Doctors Without Borders.
This comes as the Band Aid single to help raise funds to fight Ebola reached number one last month, but has come under mounting criticism for its portrayal of Africa – today, a British Ebola survivor told the BBC he found the song “cringey”.
A recurring theme
Roskilde Festival is well known for its support of charitable causes, as the festival is 100 percent not for profit.
Over the past 40 years, the festival has generated over 30 million euros for charities including Amnesty International, Save the Children and the World Wildlife Fund, as well as many smaller Danish charities.
