KIDS 2007 Fundraising on Kefalonia

Three very different voices concerned about the plight of displaced children.

This year the KIDS on Kefalonia are raising money to send to the Dutch nuns in Uganda to help them with their very large shopping list for the ever-growing House of Grace and House of Hope. They need money for the breakfast porridge and more than just pens and paper for their latest SOS (Send and Orphan to School) campaign. All the money raised goes direct to this non-government organisation charity.

Mia Farrow brought the genocide in Darfur back in the news today 15 Feb 2007 as she reported on her recent visit to the Central African Republic and Chad in the capacity of Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF.

She talked of a traumatised poplulation terrified of armed groups of militia who are afraid to return to their villages to reconstruct their lives for fear of further attack. Mia Farrow highlighted the forgotten crisis and visited families where terrified children are living in the bush, eating leaves.

In mid December 2006 actor George Clooney also spoke out against the horrors he witnessed when visiting the Sudanese region of Darfur, saying the area urgently needs peacekeepers. This is not just a war - it is actually ethnic cleansing.

He said that at least 200,000 people have died in the region aand about 2.5 million are homeless after years of fighting.

PHOTOS on this page from
www.news.bbc.co.uk

In February 2004 BBC correspondent Andrew Harding travelled to Lira in Northern Uganda after a massacre in the area of 200 people by rebels. In the middle of a peace rally marching through town a skinny boy grabbed his hand and through his sobs told of how his family had been killed by the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army rebel group).

Both his parents, his brother and his sister had been massacred and he was lost. Andrew called a local orphanage run by a Dutch woman called Jozina whose colleague collected Innocent the same evening and took him away on her bicycle to his new home. A few weeks later the East Africa correspondent visited the Dutch-run orphanage 'The House of Grace' just outside the town of Lira in Uganda and watched while 20 children said their prayers before eating a breakfast of porridge. Innocent was well looked after and attending a nearby school.

At the end of June 2006 Andrew Harding followed the progress of Innocent and found that there were now 93 more children to look after.

In Dutch it is Het Linda Projekt and in English The Linda Project which stands for the Light in dynamic Africa.
Founder member Jozina Linda Van Eerdenburg.

On 4th Feb the KIDS raised 110 euro at the KATS event in Skala selling 'vintage items' and on SUNDAY 4th March the KIDS are having a coffee morning and spring bazaar with famous raffle at Lambrini's (Elios Taverna) in Argostoli Harbour from 11a.m. to 4p.m.
There will be 'vintage items' new clothes, jumble, local artist's paintings, designer jewellery and a book stall. Please support our event - it will all be for the KIDS!

Francesca Roe
email
homers@otenet.gr
Please contact Francesca if you wish to donate a raffle prize or assist with this event.