Some Special Causes

This page is dedicated
to some very special causes.
Please submit your cause
when you sign the guest book





The Children of Aids

Africa, the dark continent, the birthplace of humankind, home to the tallest and shortest people on earth. What do you think of when you hear the word, Africa? Is it a refuge for wild animals, lions, gazelles, elephants? Do you focus on the people, their poverty, their ignorance, their children?

A nightmare unlike anything they have ever seen is stalking the families of sub-saharan Africa. You’ve heard of it, maybe you even know someone with it. It is AIDS. While this disease threatens the life of anyone who contacts it in the West, it is literally destroying the future of Africa. While famine & drought threaten this over exploited, under-developed continent, Aids is shattering the foundations of african society. Here we see grandmothers struggling to keep their grandchildren alive. Children assuming the role of care takers of their dying parents.

The statistics are frightening! UNAIDS has estimated that the average 15-year-old boy in South Africa has a 66 per cent lifetime risk of dying of AIDS. In Zambia the rate is 61 per cent, whereas in worst hit Botswana, 88 per cent of today's 15-year-olds will die from the condition.

By 2010, AIDS could kill as many as six million South Africans. By that time there will be two million AIDS orphans - up from today's total of 420,000. In all, one in three children will have lost a parent to AIDS. No one has any idea what kind of country these children will inherit, or how well equipped they will be to begin the process of rebuilding.

AIDS is having the most significant economic impact in the agricultural sector. Agriculture provides a living for four fifths of the population in many African countries. But already, in the 25 hardest hit countries in Africa, AIDS has killed seven million agricultural workers since 1985. According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, it could kill 16 million more by 2020- equivalent to 26 per cent of their agricultural workforce. In July last year UN agencies along with implementing partners and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) launched a regional appeal for US $611 million - US $507 million for food and US $104 million for non-food items - to address the humanitarian needs of 12.8 million people in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Lesotho and Swaziland. To date, the total response amounts to just under US $350 million - of which more than US $320 million has been for food. But by August 2002, following vulnerability assessments, aid agencies estimated that the number of people in need in the six countries had risen to 14.4 million. The review said the latest assessments pegged the figure of those in need at 15 million.

"Not only does the UN need continued food donations over the next months, but to help get the region back onto its feet, we must see increased and immediate pledges for vital relief items such as water, sanitation and educational supplies, agricultural inputs and medicines to fight off disease, HIV/AIDS in particular, which is threatening to tear apart southern African societies," Judith Lewis, Regional Coordinator for the UN Special Envoy for Humanitarian Needs in Southern Africa,said.

So what can we do? How can we alleviate the suffering and rescue an entire generation of children from the effects of this pandemic? While medical researchers are struggling to find a cure and tests of an Aids Vaccine are just starting, caring for the children and the Aids orphans is equally necessary. If you want to lend a hand or be part of the cure the following link will show you how.

The Child Health Site

In less than five seconds, visitors to The Child Health Site can click on the "Help a Child - button and, at no cost to them, save and improve young lives by funding medicines or treatments that prevent life-threatening diseases and blindness, restore the vision of blind children and enable child amputees to walk and lead active lives.

Funding generated by visitors' clicks is used to provide: prosthetic legs to the child victims of landmines in Viet Nam, maternal HIV test kits for women giving birth in Africa so that drugs can be administered to reduce the rate of mother-child HIV transmission by up to 70%, emergency oral rehydration formula for infants, eye surgeries to cure childhood blindness, and six-month doses of vitamin A to help prevent onset of life-threatening childhood diseases and blindness.

The money used to help children, generated with every click, is paid by The Child Health Site's sponsors and distributed by its charity partners.

The Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric AIDS Foundation
Mercy Corps
Helen Keller Worldwide,
The Prosthetic Outreach Foundation .

Every click helps a child, so please click every day.

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Each of us wish for a peaceful life
a peaceful world or maybe just
a peaceful moment for ourselves.
Danny is a 10 year old boy from
the Netherlands. This peace dove
is his gift to us.

There are any number of organizations
and societies dedicated to saving
the wild ceatures of the world
Here are my favorites

Oceana

Care 2

Care2 supports a large number of ecological
and wild life societies. It works to preserve
the Rainforest, Big cats,the oceans and will keep you
up to date with environmental news and alerts.
The next sites are also worthwhile
and I urge you to submit your own.