The YouTuber, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson , is the most followed individual creator on YouTube with over 208 million subscribers on his main channel. He posted his latest video on November 4, titled “I built 100 wells in Africa “, which has received more than 70 million views as of November 9.
“This is the first of 100 wells that we will build in this video,” Donaldson says at the start of the video, as he stands in front of what appears to be a large drill that has just found a water source, before adding into the voiceover that this particular well is being built in a village in Kenya.
Donaldson said the new wells will provide clean drinking water to up to 500,000 people in Cameroon, Kenya, Somalia, Uganda and Zimbabwe, while an accompanying fundraising drive to support local water aid organizations has raised donations more than 300,000 USD as of the morning of November 6.
Donaldson’s 10-minute video also shows him donating supplies to schools in Kenya, such as new furniture, footballs, computers, whiteboards and projectors; build a bridge across the river to safely connect the village with the local school and hospital; and donated bicycles to a village in Zimbabwe to help children get to school.
In the video, Donaldson speaks to a woman he says is a school teacher and points out the river that students previously used as a water source. She said they had diarrhea and typhoid fever, a life-threatening bacterial infection.
The upload received an overwhelmingly positive response in the YouTube comments section, where Donaldson and his team were praised for their ongoing charity work.
Freelance reporter Ferdinand Omondi praised Donaldson’s efforts but at the same time said it was a pity that an African country needed a YouTuber’s “charity tour”.
“I’ve been doing this for 15 years,” Saran Kaba Jones, founder and CEO of FACE Africa, an organization working to improve water and sanitation infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa, told CNN. years but we are finding it difficult to continue our work because funding, awareness and advocacy all require a lot of effort.
But overnight, this person appeared, who happened to be a white male figure with a huge social media platform, and suddenly, he had all the attention. It’s unpleasant but it also helps understand the nature of the world.”
MrBeast visits a school in Africa.
She praised Donaldson for paying attention to the need to provide clean water but warned that “the issue is sustainability. It’s one thing to go in and install the well, another thing is we have to go back 3, 4 or Five years from now and see if that well is still working.”
Kaba Jones told CNN that FACE Africa operates in areas where “60% of wells are broken and people have returned to drinking water from the creek because there is no infrastructure for monitoring and repair maintenance.” She hopes Donaldson’s kindness will support the above areas as well.
However, not everyone feels comfortable. Kenyan politician Francis Gaitho criticized Donaldson’s video, saying on social network X that it perpetuated the stereotype that Africa is “dependent on handouts… and philanthropic intervention”.
Washington Post journalist Taylor Lorenz accused Donaldson of “monetizing ‘nice’ content by exploiting vulnerable people”.
This is not the only video about Donaldson’s charitable activities. Previously, he posted a video sponsoring 1,000 cataract surgeries for people with this disease and buying prosthetic limbs for 2,000 amputees.
In January, he attracted more than a quarter of a billion views from just two videos on his main channel, one of the aforementioned surgery for 1,000 people with cataracts and the purchase of hearing aids for 1,000 people with hearing loss.
MrBeast is famous for his charity content, attracting tens of millions of views per video.
Such videos helped him build a business empire potentially worth more than $1 billion and earned him enough recognition that Time magazine named him one of the most influential people of the year. 2023.
However, some critics have previously accused Donaldson of exploiting vulnerable people such as the poor or disabled to generate views and revenue.Previously, he posted a video with the content of supporting an orphanage in Africa from having to close. Reacting to this, Lourenza Foghill, from Hope and Homes for Children, accused MrBeast of choosing to “completely ignore” the global efforts of organizations such as UNICEF or the United Nations, according to Daily Mail.
“Is this a classic case of white saviorism? Arguably so, but one thing is certain: MrBeast is taking away the right of children to grow up in a family.” orphans’ in Baphumelele,” Foghill added.
Children’s charity Lumos said at the time: “We do not believe that anyone in the video has bad intentions, including Mama Rosie and MrBeast. But if we want to support children in a good way As much as possible, we need to support families with community-based care, so their children can stay where they belong.”
After the well construction video was posted, the YouTuber realized that he might be hated and said on X: “I don’t care. I will always use my channel to help people and try to inspire your audience to do the same”.