Naomi Osakawill donate any prize money she wins from an upcoming tournament to help relief efforts following Saturday’s7.2-magnitude earthquake in Haiti, which has killed over 700 people.
“Really hurts to see all the devastation that’s going on in Haiti, and I feel like we really can’t catch a break,” the 23-year-old tennis star, whose father is from Haiti,wroteon social media Saturday evening.
“I’m about to play a tournament this week and I’ll give all the prize money to relief efforts for Haiti,” she added, referring to the Western & Southern Open. “I know our ancestors blood is strong we’ll keep rising.”
“The most important thing is to recover as many survivors as possible under the rubble. We have learned that the local hospitals, in particular that of Les Cayes, are overwhelmed with wounded, fractured people,” Prime Minister Ariel Henry said on Saturday, per theAssociated Press. “The needs are enormous. We must take care of the injured and fractured, but also provide food, aid, temporary shelter, and psychological support.”
Stringer/Anadolu Agency via Getty
Osaka, who recently returned from theTokyo Olympics, has a long history of using her platform to shine a light on important causes.
Earlier this year, the athlete — whose mother is Japanese —condemned anti-Asianhate amid an increase of hate crimes against the AAPI community.
“#stopasianhate <- It’s really sad that this even has to be a hashtag/slogan. It should be common sense but it seems like common sense is uncommon in this world now,” she wrote onInstagram.
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During last year’s US Open, the tennis champ also wore a series of face masks featuring the names of victims of racial injustice.
“I think tennis, people watch it all around the world and things that we think are common names are probably not common overseas,” she said in one post-match interview about using her platform tospread knowledge of police brutality and racism. “For me I just want people to have more knowledge. I feel like the platform that I have right now is something that I used to take for granted and I just feel like I should be using it for something.”
source: people.com
