Contributed by Nadira Jamerson
Willow Smith and Jaden Smith were featured on the latest cover of Vogue Italia. Their interviews included with the shoot focused on how the siblings are working to use their fame and social influence to better the world community. Jaden Smith spoke about how the siblings are specifically working to provide clean water to Flint, MI through JUST water and their 501CTHREE community organization.
During their interview with Vogue Italia Willow Smith said, “There’s no point to having all of these resources and all of these eyes on you if you are not expressing and addressing the real problems in our world. For me, I feel like the emotionality of humans and how we relate to one another is so important. In the face of racism and sexism, we have to learn to sufficiently stand up for ourselves. And it’s on our generation to make sure that we have a sustainable planet and we are making the correct steps to survive and reverse the damage that has already been done. I constantly think about this, and my coping mechanism is to find more ways to help more creativity and more community in order to prevail. Life is precious and short and both of us want to do whatever we can do to help. The gratitude I feel is for the chance we’ve been given to participate and that’s just as much down to the goodness of the people who are listening as to the platform we’ve been given.”
Jaden Smith explained, “I feel that we just try to set a good example, as much as it is possible, to the generation of young people who are looking at what we are doing. That’s represented in JUST and 501CTHREE, which embody our commitment to creating awareness around the challenges humans face in terms of sustainable energy, water and food – now and in the future. One of the first projects of 501CTHREE is to install water filtration systems for communities in Flint, MI and Los Angeles, here in California. Or the two pilot programs of food trucks for the Skid Row community in L.A. that are giving out 500 meals a day. We are trying to do things in a way that educates people who are looking to us about what’s going on in the world. And it’s what Willow does with our mom and grandmother with Red Table Talk – facing and addressing sexism and racism.”
In an Instagram post following the story, Willow called Jaden her “Partner in Justice.”
