Lady Gaga Launches Born This Way Foundation At Harvard University

Becky Bain | February 29, 2012 4:44 pm

Harvard University was flooded by little monsters this afternoon, when Lady Gaga arrived for the launch of her Born This Way Foundation. “I’m not here today to give you an answer. And I’m not here to tell you I can solve these problems [of bullying],” Gaga told the crowd, which included fans, students, her mother and co-founder Cynthia Germanotta, Oprah Winfrey and speaker/author Deepak Chopra. “This is about transformative change in culture over a period of time.” Head below for some of the major highlights from Gaga’s big day in Cambridge.

“One of the most important things I wanted to share with all of you today, it’s no secret I speak out against bullying,” said Gaga at the event (which was streamed live online). This is not an anti-bullying foundation; this is a youth-empowerment foundation. This is about changing the climate of the school environment and not putting the power in the hands of the teachers or the government. It is about the bubble effect. I don’t believe they have the answers; I believe that you do.”

In addition to the launch of her foundation, Gaga is premiering her Born Brave Bus, which is “essentially a bus that is going to travel and follow my tour bus around the country, and it will welcome anyone from any walk of life to come and hang out and talk about love, acceptance, kindness and so forth,” said Gaga. “And the best thing about it, it’s going to be fun. It’s going to essentially be a tailgate. This is not about saying, ‘I need help,’ but if you do, you can come. If you want to help someone else, you can come and say ‘Hey, what’s up?'”

Oprah Winfrey hosted the event, and spoke to the crowd about Gaga’s do-gooding efforts. “I was recently with the great Gloria Steinem, who said that sometimes the only way you can get attention to a problem is to freak people out,” said Winfrey. ” ‘Break the form,’ she said. You have to stop playing the game in order to change the content.”

“Lady Gaga, with her music and her message and her own story, is breaking the form, and she is changing consciousness,” she added. “She says that she wasn’t put on earth just to sing songs; her passion is to be that force for good. The Born This Way Foundation is in line with so many of my core beliefs.”

Gaga’s mother, Cynthia Germanotta, wrote a lengthy piece on The Huffington Post about her goals for the foundation and working with her daughter. “We’re going to do our best to help youth feel safe and accepted, so that they have the skills to effect change and recognize opportunities in their communities where they can make a difference.” Read the full article here.

[Via MTV]

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