We had a huge amount of interest in our call to vote on what charity should get the proceeds from our mesh ’09 after-party. There was a heated competition between supporters of a number of excellent charitable groups, including the Daily Bread Food Bank, Habitat for Humanity, WarChild, Love of Reading and Little Geeks (which was the charity we chose last year). After an extended voting round, we came up with a winner — and the charity of choice is WarChild. Congratulations to them, and to all of the very worthy groups who participated this year. The following is a statement from James Topham of WarChild, and there’s a tip-jar for donations directly below:
War Child Canada is 10 years old this year. But this is no reason for
celebration.
For a child in sub-Saharan Africa to make it to 10 years old is a major achievement. 1 in 6 die before they’re half that age. And in the 10 years that we’ve been open, over 30 wars have been raging, while man’s brutality towards children has, if anything, intensified. From rape as a weapon of war against girls well under 10 years old -to the almost commonplace use of children as front-line ‘soldiers,’ to the targeting of children and their communities as a matter of course, the threats to children’s lives and well-being only increase as we develop more lethal and immoral ways of waging war.
War Child Canada works in some of the most violent and terrifying places for a child to grow up. In countries such as the Congo, northern Uganda, Afghanistan and the Darfur region of Sudan, we work with local people to restore a sense of security to children’s lives. Our efforts are focused on three building blocks: rights protection, education and poverty reduction, all of which are fundamental to this next generation’s ability to lead their communities out of darkness and towards a more peaceful and hopeful future.
Vital to our continued success is a network of like-minded people across North America, whose generosity with their time, talents and donations allow our work to continue and grow.
That is why we are so delighted to be associated with Mesh ’09, a conference
celebrating the power of interconnectivity. You can join our network at
warchildheroes.net or by following us on Twitter. And you can donate through the chip-in jar or at warchild.ca/Mesh09.