An article by The Huffington Post does a fantastic job detailing Feist‘s selfless work with the HIV-positive children of Malawi and also hinting toward a new album set for an April release. The function of her charitable initiative is simple, provide the children of Malawi with backpacks. These backpacks could be used for a lot of the obvious school related tasks but most importantly its intention is to be used to carry the children’s medicine. The kids would walk to get their medicine from Dignitas, some would walk days, and then walk back home. That is where Feist came up with her idea of getting the kids backpacks to carry these medications in, which would help to reduce the number of kids losing or mishandling these important medications.
“The local director of Dignitas just casually said they have nowhere to keep anything and if they had bags it would make such a massive difference,” says Feist to The Huffington Post. “She referred to it as ‘a tiny hole in the bottom of this boat. We succeeded in getting all of these kids free drugs and social and educational support. But if they can’t keep them safe then the whole thing falls apart.’”
Feist’s backpack campaign proved to be highly successful and demand constantly rises for the bags. She started with an order of 1,000 backpacks and is currently looking to fill a huge 6,000 pack order.
“I’m a little concerned how we’re going to get so many more,” Feist admits to The Huffington Post. “But with the parents who read this maybe there’s a chance.”
Fiest is also contributing vocals to Broken Social Scene’s reunion album. Feist was once an member of the group and appeared on their Feel Good Lost album. She also toured with the band between 2002 and 2005.
According to Consequence of Sound, she has confirmed an appearance at Justin Vernon’s Eaux Claires Music Festival in July too.
Feist’s last release came in 2011 with her highly successful Metals.