Idris Alba and wife Sabrina launch $40 million UN fund to help poor farmers facing coronavirus crisis

Idris Elba and his wife Sabrina Dhowre Elba launch a $40 million fund to help others amid coronavirus crisis.

The British actor who along with his wife recently recovered from COVID-19, says he and his wife had their lives “turned around” after contracting the coronavirus, calling the experience “definitely scary and unsettling and nervous.”

“You know, everyone’s sort of feeling the way we have been feeling, but it has definitely been sort of just a complete upheaval,” he told The Associated Press.

Yet the British actor feels that there are life lessons to be learned, and the pandemic serves as a reminder that “the world doesn’t tick on your time.”

“I think that the world should take a week of quarantine every year just to remember this time. Remember each other. I really do,” he further added.

“People forget that 80 percent of the poor population live in these rural areas.” Dhowre Elba said. “What we are really worried about at the moment, and why we are launching this fund is that those people are being forgotten.”

Elba and his wife, have joined forces with the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) as UN Goodwill Ambassadors, to launch the new $40 million fund.

The actor believes people in rural and poor areas are likely to suffer more in the pandemic.

“If you imagine being in a village where no one even knows the name of your village or your population, and that you live in a slum where there is one room and six of you live in it,” he said.

“Social distancing is almost laughable.”

“What we are really worried about at the moment, and why we are launching this fund is that those people are being forgotten,” Dhowre Elba said. “While health, you know, is so important at the moment we don’t want people to forget about what comes after that.”