World's Children: Spring Edition 2011

The magazine for our supporters Spring 2011

East Africa Food Crisis

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Help us make history in the future

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The woman who saved the children

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Thank you Andrews Group Andrews Group is a proud supporter of Save the Children Australia.

The Melbourne-based consultancy has over 25 years’ experience providing marketing communication, strategy and research advice and services to not-for-profits, all levels of government and organisations in the private sector. Together, Andrews Group and Save the Children are working to improve communication so that you know how your support is transforming the lives of the world’s most vulnerable children.

Visit andrewsgroup.com.au

ANZ Trustees We would like to thank ANZ Trustees for their support of our Transition from Detention and Remand program in Tasmania. This program supports young people aged 10 to 17 years to transition back into the community after being released from the Ashley Youth Detention Centre. The funding from ANZ Trustees will help us support up to 80 young offenders over the next year.

Aboriginal Art World Aboriginal Art World, the Alice Springs art gallery specialising in Central and Western Desert art, continues to generously support Save the Children’s School Attendance program. Showing its commitment towards changing the educational outcomes for Indigenous children, Aboriginal Art World makes regular monthly donations towards the program, which aims to strengthen relationships and foster positive engagement to develop strong, consistent school attendance for children in the Northern Territory.

contents In this edition

Save the Children is Australia’s leading independent emergency relief and development organisation for children. We save and protect children’s lives and strive to give every child a safe and happy childhood.

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East Africa Food Crisis

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By the time a problem makes the evening news, it’s too late

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Early learning is more than just fun and games

Our Vision is a world in which every child attains the right to survival, protection, development and participation.

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Help us make history in the future

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Our Purpose is to inspire breakthroughs in the way the world treats children, and to achieve immediate and lasting change in their lives.

The woman who saved the children

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Thoughts from our supporters

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savethechildren.org.au

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In this edition...

We feature the East Africa Food Crisis, with the moving and inspirational story of Hussein, a health worker in Kenya. Hussein is seeing first-hand the affects the food crisis is having on children. His story about the lengths he goes to reach even the most remote communities to deliver health services is truly inspirational.

The East Africa Food Crisis has been sparked by a deadly combination of conflict, escalating food prices and failed rains. Across Kenya and Somalia millions of children are hungry, thirsty and desperate. Without urgent action children are in danger of becoming critically malnourished and, without help, many in the worst hit areas could die.

Across the region Save the Children is on the ground providing food, water, medicine and crucial support to children and families.

We’re thankful for the support we have already received for our East Africa Food Crisis Appeal.

Within days of the crisis hitting the news, you were donating online and over the phone to help children and families in this desperate time.

We thank you for your support. But more than 10 million people still need help and we urgently need donations to reach more families.

Hussein’s perseverance and determination is not unlike Eglantyne Jebb, a pioneering woman who founded Save the Children in 1919.

Below left: Daniel, a community health worker, gives vitamins to Mohame, 36 months old, at a Save the Children outreach site in Kenya.

Below middle: Issaq, 7 months, is fed nutritious peanut paste.

Photo: Rachel Palmer / Save the Children Below right: Abdikadir, 14 months, has his middle upper arm circumference measured at a Save the Children centre in Puntland, Somalia. Photo: Rachel Palmer / Save the Children

In a time when women didn’t even have the right to vote, Eglantyne was raising money to feed starving children in post World War I Europe.

She met with the Pope, received support from high profile people, and wrote a charter to protect children which has now been adopted by all but three countries around the world. You can read more about Eglantyne in our interview with her biographer Clare Mulley on page 10.

This edition also features stories from supporters who have left generous gifts in their Wills to help transform the lives of children, as well as an interview with our early childhood specialist about the importance of early learning activities on a child’s future.

We’re always interested in what you have to say, so please join the conversation on facebook or twitter, or send us an email at info@ savethechildren.org.au – we look forward to hearing your thoughts and comments.

Thanks for your ongoing support, the team at Save the Children Australia

East Africa Food 2

Hussein is a health worker at Save the Children’s Community Therapeutic Centre in Kenya. He also travels to ‘outreach sites’ throughout his district treating malnourished children and pregnant women. He tells us about his work and the food crisis facing his country.

“On Mondays we pack our luggage for the week, high energy peanut paste and corn soya blend and leave Wajir by car, heading for the bush.

The severely malnourished children receive the high energy peanut paste and the moderately malnourished children the corn soya blend.

“There are four teams that go to outreach sites, and we serve 24 sites. These are all places where there aren’t any other health services. We do the health treatment in these areas.

Each day is different and each outreach centre is different. We can see up to 300 people in a day.

“The rain did not fall sufficiently, and there was not enough for the whole population, so we have seen a high influx of people suffering from not having enough food and water.

“I provide treatment, do screening, see any sick child, and see children who might need referrals to the hospital in Wajir. Then we proceed towards the next site, spending the night in a tent which we pitch.

“Each malnourished child gets 4kg of corn soya blend but often the mother shares it amongst her other children, even though we advise them to only give it to the malnourished child because it’s not enough for the whole family.

“There is a huge lack of water in some areas. There was one time when I saw about 100 people queuing with their jerrycans. This was at the furthest site from Wajir. There was very little rainwater grabbed during the small rains. It was their last source of water.

“Save the Children is providing water in trucks in some areas and so I gave them the details of this area so they can send water there.

“I know that because of Save the Children, we are saving a great many lives.

“It’s really rewarding when I help a suffering child, give them treatment and the nutritious food and then, when I do a follow up, I find the child playing around after a month. It makes me feel great.

“Like this mother with a 12 month old child. She looked like a skeleton. The mother told me the child had been like this for two weeks. She had looked for a medical facility but because of the distance it was difficult to get to one.

Top left: Hussein is a health worker at Save the Children’s Community Therapeutic Centre in Kenya. Photo: Tugela Ridley/ Save the Children Left: Hussein walks along a queue of women and children waiting to be seen at the clinic. Photo: Tugela Ridley/ Save the Children

Crisis But then a friend told her about Save the Children. so the mother brought the child to us. The child was critically ill.

“I pleaded with the mother to take her to hospital but the mother declined. She said if we referred the child she would have to go with her to hospital and then who would look after the two children she’d left back in the bush? Their father had gone with their few camels to look for pasture.

“So I came up with an alternative – go with my vehicle, get the other children and bring them with us to the hospital. She agreed and off we went to the hospital in Wajir.

“The child was given medication and milk. I had put an IV drip on the child straight away, because sometimes there are delays at the hospital as they are so busy.

“The child was taken to the inpatient ward and the following week I visited her and found that she had really improved. She stayed in hospital for 10 days and was then discharged. We then enrolled the child in our feeding program. That was two months ago.

She is now very okay. I saw her this week and the mother smiles whenever I see the child.

savethechildren.org.au

What Save the Children is doing With your help we have already reached 1 million people across East Africa. We are: feeding over 200,000 children under the age of five across the region. providing 27 million litres of clean water to over 135,000 people through our emergency water trucking. providing jerry cans, water filters and water purification tablets to ensure that water is safe to drink. helping families afford nutritious food by distributing food vouchers that can be used locally to support the local market. supporting people who’ve lost their incomes by providing cash transfers, enabling them to buy essentials for their children.

“Malnutrition has many long-term affects – it damages children’s early milestones and thinking capacity. Their immunity is much lower so as other diseases come in, they are more susceptible.

And often they will not grow, they will become severely undersized.

“The situation is bad because of the prolonged drought, which is getting worse by the day.”

You can help children in East Africa by donating to our East Africa Food Crisis Appeal.

See the back page of this World’s Children for your donation form.

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See our video on the East Africa Food Crisis online: savethechildren.org.au/eastafrica

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By the time a problem makes Suzanne Dvorak, Chief Executive of Save the Children Australia tells us about the tragedies facing East Africa and how it could have been prevented.

Suzanne Dvorak, Chief Executive Save the Children Australia

Two tragedies are unfolding in East Africa. The first is the very visible one, the tragedy of families who’ve walked for weeks, their children growing weak with hunger, desperate for our help.

Then there is the larger tragedy of a failing humanitarian system built around responding to emergencies, not preventing them.

Over the years Somalia’s aid workers have come to expect a steady trickle of desperate people fleeing their former lives as herders and pastoralists. But now the trickle has become a flood.

Over 2,300 people are leaving Somalia each day, and that number is increasing. Aid workers who’ve spent their careers in East Africa say it’s the worst crisis they’ve seen in two decades.

Save the Children is on the ground delivering lifesaving help to tens of thousands of children.

The families we are helping now are incredibly

tough, but they’ve been hit by a triple whammy. The rains have failed this year in Kenya and Ethiopia, and for the last two years in Somalia.

Food prices have shot up across the region, with staples rising by up to 240%. Finally the ongoing conflict in Somalia has severely weakened people’s resilience and ability to absorb shocks.

Families are struggling to get even one meal a day as livestock die and crops wilt. Small children are especially vulnerable to malnutrition, which leaves them stunted for life, physically and mentally.

We saw this disaster coming as early as last year. There’s a warning system in place, fed by satellite imagery, rainfall measurements and crop growth figures. Food prices have been rising for years. Save the Children was already trucking in emergency water supplies in February.

But the fate of many of the children now malnourished was already sealed. We have a broken humanitarian system based on responding, not preventing.

It’s a collective failure. Aid agencies go to huge lengths to prepare the communities they work with to adapt to droughts and other shocks, but there’s a limit to what they can do to raise money from governments and the UN in the early stages of a crisis. It’s very hard to talk up a situation before it becomes a full-blown emergency.

If aid agencies successfully stop a problem developing into something worse then we’re open to criticism of crying wolf. It’s easier for an organisation to prove it has dealt with an emergency rather than averted one.

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the evening news, it’s too late Politicians and policy makers in rich countries are often sceptical of taking preventative action because they think aid agencies are inflating the problem. Developing country governments are embarrassed about being seen as unable to feed their own people. This leads to huge pressures on aid agencies to keep the problem under wraps, and exacerbates their concerns over data, always difficult to collect in unstable countries.

The net effects of all this is that the crisis gets worse, until it becomes so serious journalists can’t ignore it. But by the time the crisis is on the evening news it’s too late.

What is doubly frustrating is that by acting earlier we could have had far more effect for much less money. The UN estimates that every $1 spent in prevention saves $7 in emergency spending.

While a critical to do, taking early action is a big, difficult choice for cash-strapped African governments. Do they use their limited hard currency to buy grain reserves, or do they spend it on something else and hope for the best?

Aid agencies like Save the Children go to huge lengths to run programs which help people adapt to drought conditions in the long-term. By planting drought-resistant trees, storing rain when it does fall, and helping local economies by handing out cash grants and food vouchers, we can build the

Right: Nadifo holds her 5 month old child at a camp in Somalia.

Photo: Ed Ou / Getty Images for Save the Children Right inset: A mother and child at a camp in Somalia.

Photo: Ed Ou / Getty Images for Save the Children Left: Children at a refugee camp in Kenya

resilience of people who have been brought low by conflict and a historically unprecedented series of droughts.

We work on a large scale but it can’t operate on a national scale. For that, we need proper support from donor countries, and for national governments to plan and pay for disaster prevention schemes.

East Africa is one of those regions on the cutting edge of climate change. Droughts will get more common, but that’s no reason to forget the people who live here and call this place home. We already have the techniques which will make this a viable place to live.

Now early warning must become early action.

We need to provide help now. But we cannot forget that these children are wasting away in a disaster that we could – and should – have prevented.

Thanks to our Children’s Emergency Fund supporters, we released $100,000 from the fund to help save the lives of children at risk of starvation. Thank you.

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Early learning is more fun and games Save the Children’s Marie Stuart had a very different upbringing to most people. Her parents ran boys’ homes in rural New South Wales, where at one point there were 120 boys, Marie and her two siblings, and a whole host of social workers and support staff.

Inset: Marie Stuart is Save the Children Australia’s Early Childhood Care and Development Adviser

It’s not surprising then that Marie also decided to work with children and is now Save the Children Australia’s Early Childhood Care and Development Adviser. We spoke to her about Save the Children’s Intensive Supported Playscheme program and why early childhood education is so important.

Kids and parents come along to our Playscheme What is Save the Children Australia’s Intensive Supported Playscheme program? where each week the structure is similar – play, Just think: fun, laughter, games, and lots of children playing and talking! It’s a very lively and happy place to be.

In technical terms, a ‘Supported Playscheme’ is essentially a playgroup with structured activities that is staffed by early childhood workers (unlike normal playgroup which is unstructured and parents and kids come along to play as they like).

The structure is important as it builds familiarity and routine. Research has found that vulnerable families can be reluctant to access services (such as health care or even banking) because they are unfamiliar and the language used by professionals can be quite daunting.

sing, read a book as a group, and have a snack together before home time.

The ‘Intensive’ part of our Intensive Supported Playscheme is our Family Support Workers who get to know families during the two-hour weekly play session, and visit them outside of these hours to provide extra support where needed.

Our Playscheme program runs in over 80 locations throughout Australia in rural and urban areas, giving thousands of children access to fun, yet essential, learning activities.

How do Family Support Workers help?

As an example, we take our Intensive Supported Playscheme program into caravan parks in Queensland. Vulnerable families often live in caravan parks as it requires less forms and identity checks than government or rental housing.

One of our Family Support Workers learnt about a mum who was living in the caravan park with her children to escape an abusive partner. A warrant was also out for her arrest due to a minor police charge.

The mum was too scared to ask the police about the charge because she feared her children would be put into foster care. The mum had been in care

than just

when she was growing up and had been abused by her foster carer. She was afraid that this would happen to her own children. All she wanted to do was protect her children.

The Family Support Worker – after much research and discussions with the mum – spoke to the police.

She learnt that all the mum had to do was pay a $500 fine and the charge would be dropped. The relieved mum spent three months raising the money and was able to pay the fine. And she has turned her life around; she has moved into her own home with her children, is attending TAFE and the future is looking more secure.

Around 80% of families in our Intensive Supported Playscheme program have experienced intergenerational poverty, abuse, unemployment, welfare dependency, crime and violence. In many cases our work is about breaking this cycle.

Why do families attend our program rather than other early childhood development centres?

In many cases we go to the communities, rather than the communities coming to us. For example in the Tiwi Islands kids run to the Playscheme when the bus arrives – they love it! But if we didn’t come to the community and parents had to drive to a fixed location, fewer children would attend our program.

In many cases parents don’t have a car or money for transport, making attendance difficult.

All of our Playschemes are also free of charge, which means families aren’t burdened by the cost. Our staff are highly trained and very welcoming and friendly, which helps to break down barriers and encourage new parents and kids to the program.

We also run the program in difficult environments. For example, our Playscheme goes to a women’s prison in Queensland, giving children a chance to play with their mums. We also run a program in South Australia where kids under protection orders can bond with their parents once a week.

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Why is early childhood development so important?

Recent neuro-science tells us that 90% of the brain’s circuitry growth occurs in the first five years of life. So the learning and experiences a child has in these years is critical to their future.

Also, early childhood education programs have been found to deliver significant benefits, such as improved cognitive and social development, better transitions to school and a reduced need for remedial education. There is also evidence of higher school completion rates and employment.

Shouldn’t the Government be providing this service?

Actually, the Government – both Federal and State – do fund some of our Playschemes. We receive significant support from the Australian Government Department of Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. The rest of the money comes from our donors and support from the general public. I’d really like to thank our supporters for their help in continuing this important program; together we are helping the most vulnerable children in Australia.

Below left & below: Children at our Mobile Playscheme program.

The program runs in over 80 locations throughout Australia giving thousands of children access to fun, yet essential, learning activities.

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Help us make history in As a supporter, you already know that each of us can play an important role in helping the most vulnerable children. What you may not know is that Save the Children relies on gifts in Wills so we can continue our lifesaving work long into the future.

We are continually grateful for the truly remarkable generosity of Save the Children’s supporters. Here are just some of the stories behind the thoughtful gifts we have received.

Lal’s final gift to help children in India In July we received a gift in the Will of the late Lal Jethanand Pamnany. He had very generously left 10% of his entire Estate to Save the Children.

Although Lal lived in South Australia, he specifically wanted his gift to help children living in India. A small percentage can make a huge difference. Lal’s gift of $157,000 will provide lifesaving help to some of India’s most disadvantaged children long into the future.

Above: Suganu with her 10 month old boy Tikmgeri in rural India

Joan’s gift of time Joan Milne was a passionate and long-term supporter of Save the Children. For many years she volunteered her time, energy and skills, working in one of our many op-shops in Adelaide. Last year we heard the sad news that Joan had passed away. However, Joan had the foresight to know that she would be able to support the work of her best loved charities in another way, by including gifts in her Will.

Joan knew that her final gifts would go some way to reflect the passion and dedication that she had throughout her lifetime for her favourite causes. Joan’s commitment to transforming children’s lives has continued through the gift of $5,000 she included in her Will.

You can read more online at savethechildren.org.au/stories

Above: A child plays at our Multicultural Early Learning program in Western Australia.

Photo: Jim Holmes/ Save the Children Inset: Joan Milne

savethechildren.org.au

the future

Together into the future Help us protect future generations. By including a gift in your Will you too can continue to be part of Save the Children’s incredible history and help more children in the future.

Susan’s legacy protects children in Australia When the friends of Susan Rutherford read her Will and saw that her final wish was to help protect children from abuse, they got in touch with Save the Children.

Susan’s generous gift of $100,000 was directed towards two of our projects in Queensland which support children escaping domestic and family violence. Susan’s legacy has helped protect some of the most vulnerable children living here in Australia.

If you have already included a gift in your Will, please accept our heartfelt thanks for your thoughtfulness, foresight and generosity.

Barbara is continuing to help children caught up in emergencies Barbara Selby supported Save the Children throughout her lifetime. Each year she made donations to our fundraising appeals. She also generously supported our work in response to emergencies, most recently helping children after a severe cyclone struck Myanmar, the devastating earthquake that rocked Haiti and last year’s floods in Pakistan.

Barbara thoughtfully included a $10,000 gift in her Will “to help Save the Children’s work with disadvantaged children everywhere”. Barbara’s final gift can provide nutritious food to feed 20,000 children suffering from severe malnutrition. Her gift will save children’s lives.

Right: Hassan, 2 years old, on his final day at a therapeutic centre in Kenya.

Photo: Katie Drew / Save the Children

For more information about how to include a gift in your Will or to be sent a booklet with more details about the difference your gift can make, please call Ross Anderson on 1800 76 00 11 or email bequests@savethechildren.org.au Above: Ross Anderson, Bequest Officer

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The woman who saved the children Clare Mulley first learnt about Eglantyne Jebb (the founder of Save the Children) when she was working as a fundraiser at Save the Children UK. As she learnt more about Eglantyne she discovered what a remarkable and pioneering lady she was – and decided it was time the world knew her story. Clare tells us more about the inspirational Eglantyne Jebb.

Why did Eglantyne start Save the Children?

In 1919 Eglantyne was arrested in Trafalgar Square for distributing leaflets she had published without the permission of the government censors. One of the leaflets still survives in the Save the Children archive, and it features a photograph of a starving Austrian child (below), a girl of two-and-a-half, so frail that she cannot support herself on her own legs. In the top right hand corner is the word ‘suppressed!’, written in Eglantyne’s handwriting. That exclamation mark reflects Eglantyne’s outrage at the British Liberal government’s decision to continue the economic blockade to Europe after the end of the First World War, as a way of pushing through harsh peace terms.

The result of this policy was widespread starvation across Austria and Germany.

At this point Eglantyne was simply hoping to raise public pressure to end the blockade, but her arrest gave her a greater public platform. Having conducted her own defence Eglantyne was found technically guilty, and fined £5. But the crown prosecutor then pushed a £5 note into her hands – she had clearly won the moral case. The story was all over the papers the next day and Eglantyne and her sister Dorothy quickly built on the publicity to call a public meeting at the Royal Albert Hall where they launched the Save the Children Fund to help feed the children of Austria and Germany – countries that had been Britain’s enemies just a few months before. It was an extraordinary achievement.

But Eglantyne was motivated by more than providing immediate relief. At the end of what had once been known as the Great War, she believed that it was important to invest in children in order to secure a more just and peaceful future.

Above inset: Author Clare Mulley wrote the biography of Eglantyne Jebb Above: Eglantyne Jebb was a pioneering women who founded Save the Children Left: A leaflet produced by Eglantyne Jebb

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You can buy a signed copy of Clare Mulley’s fascinating and inspirational biography of Eglantyne Jebb, ‘The Woman Who Saved the Children’ for $24.95 at savethechildren.org.au/shop All author royalties from the book are being donated to Save the Children.

We thank Clare for her wonderful support.

Eglantyne knew that raising money was key to helping children.

How did she do this?

Eglantyne was brilliant at fundraising, pioneering many of the methods that we now take for granted. She was the first to place full-page advertisements in newspapers, prompting some committee members to resign in disgust, but the ads raised money well in excess of their cost.

She commissioned a press photographer to take a film camera to Russia in the famine of 1922, making Save the Children the first charity to show films in cinemas.

In the early days when there was still public resistance to helping the children of Austria and Germany, she was also the first person to get celebrities behind her appeals in a concerted way.

One of these was the playwright George Bernard Shaw who wrote in support of the fund; ‘I have no enemies under the age of seven’.

I hear Eglantyne met the Pope (remarkable in an era when women didn’t even have the right to vote).

Can you tell us how this happened?

Eglantyne’s greatest fundraising coup was winning the support of the churches. She wrote to Archbishop Randall, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to invite him to consider donating all church collections to the Fund one Sunday. But the Archbishop did not particularly want to associate the church with Save the Children, which he considered a controversial cause.

Undaunted Eglantyne wrote to Pope Benedict XV, and was invited to the Vatican. After a two hour meeting the Pope was so impressed that he donated an immediate £25,000 to the appeal, and pledged that Catholic churches not just in Britain, but around the world, would give one Sunday’s collections to Save the Children. When Archbishop Randall heard of the appeal he agreed that the Church of England would also support it, and many other faith groups also joined in. It was the only time in history that so many different faiths had come together around the world to support a single humanitarian cause.

Eglantyne left a lasting legacy, a Charter for Children, which later became the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Why did she write the Charter for Children?

Eglantyne knew the importance of relief work better than anyone, but she felt that this alone was not enough. Where possible she was looking for ways to provide lasting solutions or even prevent many of the difficulties that face children.

The story is that it was a cloudless summer Sunday in 1922 when Eglantyne climbed Mont Saleve in her long skirt and tightly laced boots, to get a bit of perspective on the issue. As she settled in the crisp turf at the top she looked down over the international city and came up with the revolutionary idea that children are people, and as such they should be party to human rights. At that time children were subject to their parents, or the state if they were orphans.

So Eglantyne drafted a five-point statement of universal human rights for every individual child.

She then climbed down the mountain and pushed her charter through the fledgling League of Nations where she had a role as a welfare adviser. That statement has since evolved into the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most universally accepted human rights instrument in history.

You can read more of our interview with Clare Mulley and see a video of her speaking about the book at savethechildren.org.au/ourfounder

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Thoughts from our supporters...

We love hearing from our supporters, and we’re thrilled when you spread the message about our work and the issues facing children around the world. Without you, we couldn’t do the work we do.

We thought we’d share just a snapshot of what you’ve said over the last few months.

Hello, my name is Amelia. I am six years old. I want raise some money for the starving children who live in Somalia and Kenya. They do not have any rain so they are all in hospital. I am planning to jog around the park and get some friends to do it with me.

savechildrenaus RT @bindeling_ it I just pledged a donation to @savechildrenaus & it felt great! You can too!

savechildrenaus RT @kidsnsw: Been looking thru fab new resource @savechildrenaus FindingMyMagic on convention on rights of the child.

Sadiya Rohma Khan Forget about educating the child for a while and piling books and homework and tuitions on his little brain …what are you doing to protect your child, are you giving him the best parenting practice, the best family embrace and the best laughing days? I feel first prepare for this …then let the other things follow gradually, as they will!

I have been supporting Save the Children Australia with regular giving for a number of years and am impressed with their work internationally in helping to create or improve the future for vulnerable children. When I decided that this year I would seek sponsorship for [doing] City2Surf they were the obvious choice. So why not help out and donate to this worthy cause! I promise to do my bit and chase my “Target 70 Minutes”!

Robert Turner

@miafreedman RT@savechildrenaus We need your help.

Download Bob Marley & support children in East Africa Pls RT :-) Thx

Sweets By Sweets Hello! A group of us at Macquarie University will be raising funds for your ‘Imagine Program’ by holding a carnival-themed bake sale on our open day in September!

Will let you know how we go

savethechildren.org.au

Hannah Bird I just picked up a Born to Knit kit today at the George Street Sydney Lincraft store and have almost finished my first square.

First time knitting and everything, very happy it’s going to a good cause

Maria Djurovic Hello, I was stopped by a member of your team today at Hornsby and he told me all about your organisation and what it does for children around the world. I have to say I was truly moved by the things that he had to say. He was extremely passionate about what he was doing, was very heart warming.

Jacksee Maketh I signed up two months ago and I’m having the happiest moments in my life. Let’s save the children

Nur Fredricks this is truly one of the best causes to sponsor, we can never do enough for children of the world.

Beth Blinston 3 months on and I would like to thank those who helped at the QE2 evacuation centre here in Brisbane. Your help in taking care of Mac (the red head 7 year old boy who never stayed still) saved him from having to come back into Rocklea and see so much of the damage. Thanks heaps Beth

Join the conversation! facebook.com/SaveTheChildrenAustralia twitter.com/savechildrenaus

youtube.com/SavetheChildrenAus

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Cover image: Hindiya, 36, with her daughter Rahma, seven months old, outside their house in Abdiaziz, Kenya.

Photo: Tugela Redley / Save the Children.

$ We spend your money wisely For every $1 we receive we spend 70 cents directly on our programs to save and protect children’s lives. For an emergency appeal, for every $1 we receive we spend 90 cents on the emergency.

Save the Children Australia is a member of the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) and is a signatory to the ACFID Code of Conduct. The Code requires members to meet high standards of corporate governance, public accountability and financial management.

Save the Children Australia is fully accredited by AusAID, the Australian Government agency responsible for managing Australia’s overseas aid program.

Produced by: Save the Children Australia Design by: Campbell Design Group – www.cdgroup.biz

ABN 99 008 610 035

Level 6, 250 Victoria Parade East Melbourne VIC 3002 (Locked Bag 5000 Fitzroy VIC 3065) Telephone: 1800 76 00 11 Fax: 03 9938 2099 Email: info@savethechildren.org.au

savethechildren.org.au Material in this magazine may only be reproduced with the express permission of Save the Children Australia.

In the absence of a contrary statement; the programs represented in this publication, by way of photograph or other reference, are programs which are managed by either Save the Children Australia or Save the Children International members and/or their partners (to which Save the Children Australia may have contributed). In the instance of programs managed by Save the Children International, the contribution value provided by Save the Children Australia varies depending on each program and its location. All material presented in this publication is the intellectual property of Save the Children Australia and/or Save the Children International unless otherwise stated. Photos copyright Save the Children unless otherwise stated. To protect identities, some names, details and photos may have been changed. All inquiries should be directed to the Marketing Department, Save the Children Australia.

East Africa Food Crisis Right now there is a food crisis in East Africa and millions of children are facing starvation. It’s the worst drought the region has seen in 60 years. Crops are failing, livestock is dying and families have run out of food to feed their children.

Maymun was put on a feeding tube to help stabilise her weight. After four days of treatment she gained almost a kilo and from here Maymun’s mother knew she was on the road to recovery.

It was this simple treatment that helped save Two-year-old Maymun from Somalia is Maymun’s life. If you can make a donation just one child who suffered through this today, we can help more children like crisis. Her family was forced to flee their Maymun in Somalia and East Africa. farm to live in a camp for displaced people.

It costs $40 to provide a malnourished Thankfully in the camp Maymun’s mother child with a months supply of high nutrient found Save the Children’s clinic. Here food, and $150 to train a health worker a health worker checked Maymun and to save children’s lives. found that she was malnourished. Weighing If there is ever a time to donate, it is today. only 6.4kg, she was the same weight as a healthy six month old.

Above: 2-year old Maymum is just one of the many children suffering through the food crisis.

See pages 2-5 for more on the East Africa Food Crisis.

Yes, I will make a donation to the East Africa Food Crisis appeal and help children and families in need.

Please find enclosed my: Single donation of: $25 $40

$50

$150

$1000

Other: $

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Payment Details: Please debit my:

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A cheque/money order made payable to Save the Children Australia is enclosed.

Thank you for your support. Donations of $2 and over are tax-deductible. Funds raised for this appeal will be used for response and recovery programs in the affected area.

Any funds raised in excess of the amount required will be transferred to our Children’s Emergency Fund, a dedicated fund which supports and protects children in an emergency.

Making your donation: Fill out the donation form and return it to Save the Children in the enclosed reply paid envelope. Or send donation to: Save the Children, Reply Paid 86599, Fitzroy VIC 3065

Visit savethechildren.org.au and click through to the donation page to make a secure online donation.

Call our toll free number 1800 76 00 11 to make a donation over the phone.

Fill out and fax donation form to 03 9938 2088.

Level 6, 250 Victoria Parade, East Melbourne, VIC 3002 1800 76 00 11 savethechildren.org.au info@savethechildren.org.au Printed on recycled and FSC accredited paper, using soy based inks.

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