A commenter here chastised me for questioning Madonna’s motives and methods in her Malawi adoption pursuit, likening it to little David Banda, the 1-year-old Malawian boy “winning the lottery”.

The comment pointed out the charity Madonna will bestow upon the impoverished area, with millions of dollars and a new orphanage.

Perhaps it doesn’t sound so bad that the orphanage will be run by Raising Malawi, a charity set up by The Kabbalah Center, or that the children who the orphanage will serve will be taught a curriculum based on Spirituality For Kids, developed by the Kabbalah Center. But how many people actually know anything about the Kaballah Center?

A BBC undercover investigation of the London branch of the Kabbalah Center found them selling bottles of magical healing water, infused with enough energy from the mediations of members to cure cancer. The water is actually bottled in Canada by a company that was investigated in 2002 as to how its water is tested. The Center answered questions about the selling of water, face creams and other products by stating a need to “fundraise” to support their charitable works.

The Kabbalah Center claims to have 40 centers worldwide but Israeli authorities cite accounting inadequacies in their refusal to give the charity a certificate of proper management and the Charity Commissioners in Britain state the charity’s accounts demonstrate “significant shortcomings in transparency”.

And while a nanny was able to whisk little David Banda through Heathrow airport despite Madonna’s having failed to follow both British and Malawian law regarding adoptions, a British nurse who is a native of Malawi faces months of investigation and a huge amount of expense that she cannot afford as she struggles to keep a promise to her dying sister - to adopt and bring to her home in Britain, her sister’s only child, a four-year-old girl who lives in poverty, orphaned by HIV-related illness.

Charity would be allowing little Erykka Mambala to leave her life of loneliness and poverty and go to live with a loving family in Britain. Charity would be aiding the impoverished nation of Malawi by funding an orphanage that doesn’t come with the requirement that the children be taught the cult religion of your choice. Charity would be giving Yohande Banda the means to raise his son, instead of taking him away in what probably was meant to be a great public relations story for Madonna.

BBC Undercover Report on the Kabbalah Centre

Nightmare of British Nurse who wants to adopt her Malawi niece…but her name’s not Madonna

Madonna faces some obstacles in her path to adopt a Malawi boy as human rights groups speak out against the adoption and file protests with the court. One group has filed for an injunction to stop the adoption that they say is not in accordance with the laws of Malawi.

The father of the 1-year-old tells us what we already knew, that he never intended to give him up forever when he placed little David in an orphanage. He simply wanted the child to be cared for until his circumstances allowed him to return for him. But Yohande Banda hasn’t tried to stop Madonna’s adoption of the little boy, he sees it as a way to get his son cared for and educated.

According to the Daily Mail, it seems Madonna may have neglected to cross her “t’s” and dot her “i’s” when it comes to British law regarding adoption, throwing another monkeywrench into the proceedings.

Yesterday Mr Banda’s cousin, Pofera Banda, said if David was eventually taken to London, the family would want to visit Madonna there to check he was being properly looked after. ‘What I want to know is that if the child is taken, as we’ve been told, when will our child be visiting us? When will we visit him? How much contact will there be between us and him?

‘If that is not going to happen then as a family we are saying the child should not go.’

Daily Mail

Madonna is making headlines again, only this time it isn’t her latest daring video and she isn’t kissing another female celebrity. She hasn’t even published a book of simulated acts of bestiality. She’s adopted a child.

Well, that doesn’t sound too bad, you say. It’s kind of nice actually, except when you look closely at the situation.

The boy isn’t an orphan for one thing, although he resides in an orphanage. His mother died shortly after he was born, but his father is living. His father is just too poor to be able to take care of him. And so his father presented him to Madonna, apparently as part of a group of children that were lined up for her to choose from. Little David Banda was the one who won the American Idol, Madonna, as a mum.

Madonna does plan to help the community, in a Madonna sort of way. She is setting up a charity that will found an orphanage. The children there will learn Kabbala, Madonna’s religious phase at the moment.

Malawi is a country ravaged by poverty with hordes of children orphaned by an AIDS epidemic. Unfortunately not all of them will find a rich, self-indulgent celebrity to adopt them. Malawi could use an orphanage that cares for 1000 more children, but in whose interest is Madonna really acting?

David Banda is 1 year old. He will leave the country of his birth, his father will hope for his future as the son of a wealthy woman. Madonna will have satisfied a whim.

Madonna has circumvented the law in Malawi that doesn’t allow adoptions unless the applicant has fostered a child for two years while living in Malawi. She has an “interim” adoption that lets her keep the child for a year at which time, if she is a good parent, the adoption will become permanent.

Foreign adoptions of African children are on the increase as agencies spring up to meet the demand of American and European wealthy would-be parents who can afford the price of an international adoption.

Madonna can afford it. She could afford to change the lives of every man, woman and child in that small village in Malawi. She could afford to give David Banda’s father the means to keep and raise his son. She can also afford to convince a desperate father to give her his child and a judge to allow her to take him.