In Kenya India Arie had the opportunity to meet face to face with Africa’s youngest sufferers. “The children were really the most profound part of my trip,” she says. “There were so many. When I came back I would close my eyes and all I could see were the children looking at me.”

When she was in Africa she spent a lot of time simply watching the kids. “Most of them had no parents at all or had already been orphaned twice. Their parents had died and their next caretakers had died too,” she says. To India Arie, their faces told that tragic story. “The way that their eyes looked and how grown up they had to be at nine and ten…it made me mad.”

So when it came to helping out, Arie jumped right in. “Some of the other ambassadors that I’ve seen are sitting in offices and doing a lot of talking, but I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to be out [in the field].” This included visiting various slums in Kenya, buying food for UNICEF’s feeding program or simply touching the kids. Just that little gesture would make them smile.

Although UNICEF doesn’t outline any requirements for its Goodwill Ambassadors, India Arie continues to live up to her title by sharing her experience from her trip whenever she can. “Now it’s on me to figure out what I can do to help,” she says. “I wrote a lot of songs about my travels and what it was like being a black American going to Africa, how I felt about being a young celebrity going there and understanding what $300 can do.”

Because India Arie was already an advocate in the fight against AIDS, the destination was especially close to her heart: “In Africa you can’t have AIDS not be the work that you do,” she points out. “And I don’t have to give speeches, but when I do I talk about AIDS in Africa and America.”