Hip-Hop singer Wyclef Jean launched a new initiative in order to help Haiti following last month’s deadly food riots, Reuters reports. “Together For Haiti” is aimed at raising $48 million over the next six months to fund expanded food distribution, job creation and assistance for farmers in the poorest country in the Americas.

The initiative is backed by the Pan American Development Foundation, Yele Haiti and the World Food Program, and it plans to employ nearly 1,800 people a day in poor areas, distribute food to 1.5 million people and provide fertilizers to 55,000 farmers.

“We have come together to launch this new initiative because I believe we can do more and better for Haiti when we act together,” Wyclef Jean told a Manhattan news conference, according to the same source. “We are not only interested in feeding people in response to the current crisis, but we want to offer them an alternative that can help them in a sustainable way,” he added.

Jean also said that his charitable foundation for Haiti wants to give people the opportunity to set up a small business, which they can live on instead of assisting them every time there is a crisis.

Wyclef Jean was joined by singing legend Paul Simon and tsunami-surviving supermodel Petra Nemcova. “Wyclef is perfect to make people aware of the plight and suffering in Haiti,” Simon said.

Jean’s move comes just days after the Bush administration committed $20 million in emergency food aid for Haiti, including 30,000 tons of wheat, rice, beans and vegetable oil.