Charity

A melody of joy and hope

Every child has the right to a happy and protected childhood. For many children in the world, this is not a given – they are for example threatened by the current global hunger crisis. 

One in five deaths among children under five is due to malnutrition. Hunger is destroying the lives of children worldwide. Instead of growing up healthy, children with severe malnutrition struggle to survive. Instead of playing with their friends, children are too weak to even stand up. And instead of learning with childlike curiosity, children have to work to support their families to have enough food and income. 

Together with Save the Children and other sponsors, we can ensure that children in need around the world grow up healthy, are protected and able to go to school. They deserve a chance for a better future. 

Become part of this year’s Swiss Charity Concert and create a melody of joy and hope for children in need with us! With your important support, Save the Children can for example distribute drinking water and food packages. In addition, they can support families sustainably by helping them build a new source of income and treat malnourished children in health clinics and with mobile health teams. In this way, children like four-year-old Ubah in Somalia receive lifesaving help and the chance of a happy future.

All children should be able to enjoy being children and express their needs freely – but in today’s world, children often remain unheard. Together with you, we want to change this.

To strengthen the voices of children we invite you to join us at the Swiss Charity Concert. Because behind every laugh, every play and every dream, there is a story that needs to be told. With your support, you help to ensure that children can go to school, are protected from violence and have a healthy start in life. In a world full of crises and conflicts, together we create places where children can enjoy being children.

Together with Save the Children and other sponsors, we encourage children to speak out about injustice and campaign for change. Because every child – no matter where they were born – deserves a fair chance to be heard.

Together with Save the Children and other sponsors, we are committed to helping children in emergency situations, such as the hunger crisis currently affecting many countries. The motto “Together” is particularly important at the moment: the effects of the war in Ukraine combined with the climate crisis and the Corona pandemic have dramatically worsened the situation for disadvantaged children and families worldwide.

820 million people – almost 10 times the population of Germany – suffer from hunger or are already malnourished. These people have nothing to eat and empty plates in front of them every day because they have no access to food or simply cannot afford it. This is because the war in Ukraine has increased food prices immeasurably in many countries.

The Right to Learn – also for Children in Conflict Zones

More than 420 million children worldwide are living in a conflict zone. This means: nearly one-fifth of all children worldwide grow up in a region affected by war or armed conflict. The nature of conflict – and its devastating impact on children – is evolving. They last much longer, are increasingly urban and more directly hit the civil society. In today’s armed conflicts, there is often no longer a clearly demarcated battlefield: children’s homes and schools are the battlefield.

An estimated 75 million children currently affected by conflict do not have access to education.

If schools are the target for bomb attacks, they are no longer a safe place for children. Children are injured and killed in attacks and can no longer attend the destroyed schools. Children who have to leave their homes with their families often have no access to education while fleeing or living in refugee camps.

Save the Children wants to ensure, that those children have access to education as well. We build Child Friendly Spaces and Temporary Learning Centers where children are cared for and supported in a safe and child-friendly environment. They receive school lessons and school supplies. These are places where children can simply be children again and receive support to process their often traumatic experiences.

Learn more in this film (external link to YouTube)

War on Children

One in six children across the world are living in conflict areas, and children are more at risk in conflict now than at any time in the last 20 years. From Syria to South Sudan, Yemen to DRC, children are caught up in violence, which is not of their making. Children are being killed and maimed, raped and recruited, and being denied aid and medical care. Warring parties are bombing schools and hospitals on a scale not seen for decades.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Standing on the sidelines is no longer an option. We have the power to make change happen. Now is the time to end the killing of children at their school desks and in their hospital beds. We must protect children in armed conflict.

Save the Children is calling on states, militaries and all actors with influence over the lives of children in conflict, to commit to take practical action in four key areas:

• Preventing children being put at risk
• Uphold international laws and standards
• Holding violators to account
• Rebuilding shattered lives

More information including Save the Children’s War on Children Report can be found here.

Every Last Child

Every child deserves a chance to grow up healthy, learning and safe. Yet millions of children are left behind —because of who they are or where they’re born.

Through the global campaign “Every Last Child”, Save the Children works to ensure the world’s children have what every child deserves – a future. The campaign will tackle the key reasons children are left behind, and will work to ensure 15 million children have access to lifesaving health care and quality education. By 2030, Save the Children will strive to prevent the deaths of 600,000 children and give 50 million more children the opportunity to learn.

More information can be found here.

Child Friendly Spaces

The purpose of a Child Friendly Space is to provide children with a protected environment in which they can participate in organized activities to play, socialize, learn, and express themselves as they rebuild their lives. Child Friendly Spaces are one of Save the Children’s key programmatic interventions to protect children from physical harm and psychosocial distress and to help them continue learning and developing both during and immediately after an emergency.

www.savethechildren.ch

Support of a project for refugee children in Italy

In 2015, all proceeds of the concert went to a project to help refugee children arriving in Italy. Save the Children, in collaboration with the Italian authorities, looks after the needs of arriving children in Sicily (including Lampedusa), Calabria and Puglia. The organization ensures that children and families receive the necessary care and monitors the standards and child protection mechanisms in the reception camps.

www.savethechildren.ch

Project for Syrian refugee children in Jordan

With conflict continuing to rage across the region, the recent influx of Iraqi and Syrian refugees into Jordan has added to the vulnerability of both refugee and Jordanian children and families. The Jordanian government is struggling to provide basic health, food and social services to both citizens and refugees. In response, Save the Children provides aid, education and protection to children in need.

https://www.savethechildren.org/us/what-we-do/where-we-work/greater-middle-east-eurasia/jordan

Project in Ohn Pin on Lake Inle in Myanmar

With the generous donations of the Swiss Charity Concert 2011 and 2012 not only a kindergarten in Ohn Pin could be built and 25 preschool children could be enrolled, furthermore a missing water supply was installed and sustainably improved. In addition, a program was launched to build targeted income-generating activities for parents from the extremely poor regions.

www.savethechildren.ch