Dani Van Weenen, from Save the Children Charity, where she is a Change Manager, updated us on the work of this well-known charity.
Save the Children was founded back in 1919 initially in response to the plight of children amongst the ruins of the 2nd World War – unfortunately a role which is still their prime one today. Their mission is to “help children learn, grow, and become who they want to be”, and no matter where they are to find a way to reach the children who need most. “No Child is born to Die”
Save the Children is active in over 100 countries with a network of people working with other organisations. The current priority is to save children in Gaza and Ukraine from those wars and fighting the global food crisis in East Africa, and Afghanistan.
Dani’s role as change manager is to harness technology and social media to position the charity to meet challenges in the field and to access public support for their work.
The Princess Royal is an active Patron, and a key task is “localisation” to train people in the areas of need to support themselves in the future. Examples are ensuring all children have the right to vaccination, and training local people to manage a “cold chain” getting vaccines to remote areas where children need protection from disease.
Rotarians were interested to hear how this supplemented the Rotary mission to eradicate Polio, which has brought cases of this paralysing disease down from 350,000 cases to about 30 over the last 20 years.
Save the Children are re-launching their website – www.savethechildren.org.uk which enables links to all their areas of interest. You can donate and find ways to raise money for them – the Xmas Jumper appeal has raised over £35milln since 2012, challenges and marathons, and locate their charity shops which are being re-modelled and modernised to attract a new audience of re-cyclers.
They have also published “Wonderbooks” which introduce children to other children’s lives in other parts of the world and teach empathy and understanding.
Thanking Dani for her presentation Alan Bailey enquired about the challenges of working with other organisations. President Dick Dixon said that the club would make a donation towards their work.
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