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Project HappyChild NEWS October 2001 [for ongoing updates, see Latest Site News] |
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| September 2001 has been the most extraordinary month ever. Central to this of course were the events of 11th September, and we added a new page entitled "Faith, Freedom, Democracy and Peace, which has received many visitors. The advice given by an aircrew to its passengers a few days later (see Air Travel) encapsulates both the fear being experienced at that time and the resilience of people who simply weren't prepared to give in to terrorism.
We've made links also from the peace page to the American Red Cross resource of help, advice and practical info for children at times of disaster, dealing with everything from terrorist attacks to hurricanes, fire, floods, mudslides and volcanoes, as well as to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in the USA, where practical help as well as donation facilities are available. Our thoughts are with the many families who have lost friends and loved ones at this sad time. We're also deeply aware of the likely effects of this conflict on the ordinary people in Afghanistan - the victims of this regime rather than the perpetrators - and particularly the refugee situation in Pakistan. The news of planned air drops of food, blankets and tents shows that Governments intend to go some way towards helping to alleviate the current problems, though it remains to be seen how effective this will actually be. Our thoughts remain especially with Ockenden International who have refugee camps helping Afghan refugee children in Pakistan and also with Child Advocacy International who prior to 11th Sept were preparing to set up a mobile clinic and small mini-hospital to treat seriously ill children and to help mothers giving birth in two of the refugee camps. These have been radically accelerated and - thanks to local Pakistani staff - should be up and running by next week. Our thanks to Judith Flack for this update. None of us knows quite what will happen "next" in this conflict but we trust that some equitable way will be found to resolve this whole situation, for all concerned. |
| This terrorist attack has also made its impact felt in the most unexpected of ways. For example we've received an appeal for help from the Betesda Foundation in Galati, Romania. They're in the midst of an unexpected financial crisis, solely because they were scheduled to travel to America at this time (to promote Betesda and for an active fundraising tour) and had borrowed money to safeguard the needs of the Betesda project in their absence. Obviously the fundraising tour would be inappropriate just now but the requirements of the loan repayments have left them with a shortfall for actual needs in Romania. If any of you out there are in a position to help, even in a small way, they would greatly appreciate it [ e-mail benub (at) yahoo.com ]. We've seen this project go from strength to strength and there are a lot of former street children who have a wholly better life because of it - see the Betesda page - things are pretty constrained just now and help of any kind would be greatly valued.
The other major appeal received here this month has been via an e-mail for the Guestbook, from Rick Koca, Founder and CEO of "StandUp for Kids", the largest nonprofit organization in the US that works on the streets with homeless and street kids - of which there are an estimated 1,300,000 at this time. It seems that even affluent and successful countries have untold numbers of children at risk in some way. Rick (a retired US Navy Officer) founded STANDUP FOR KIDS in 1990, three years after watching a CBS broadcast, 48 Hours, about street kids in San Diego, California. Rick was so concerned by this report that when the Navy sent him to San Diego the following year, he immediately became involved in walking the streets to identify homeless teens and get them into shelters. This amazing project has developed since that time, across several US states, and now helps many thousands of kids - mostly teenagers just like those you'll find in every family. Click here for Rick's Guestbook entry. |
| Appeals and projects helping children are just one aspect of the site here at Project HappyChild, though our focus covers most areas involving children. One of the main features of the site is the free educational resources on line here, and we have added to those again this month.
In response to many requests, we've built a major new resource - Times Tables Division worksheets. This new area has 50 free-to-print worksheets for children who have learned the basic times tables and are ready to progress to learning division, using the same basic framework as for the times tables themselves. We've also had a number of enquiries about "fractions" - primarily from parents whose kids haven't quite grasped these at school but aren't quite certain of the best way to explain them. After some degree of thought we've put the basic info into a "Bart and Miss Walker" story called "An Introduction to Fractions" ..... we'll do another one in due course about "Addition of Fractions" (far more complex!) and maybe some fraction worksheets if time and other commitments allow for this. French Worksheets - We're very glad to say that the new pages for vocabulary for "Classroom" and "Medical" have now been uploaded. Our thanks for everyone's patience whilst we slowly build this area - it really is a mammoth task but will be well worth it in the longer term. Click here for the main French index. |
| We've updated the main "Freeway" page to include both the Fractions page and the new "English" area which includes "Spellings, Sounds & Meanings" as well as the free-to-print system for teaching reading, already on line [in Area 5] at Project HappyChild. Whilst the pagebuilding schedule is unbelievably crammed already, free spelling worksheets will fulfil an ongoing need for many parents and schools, and will be added to whenever possible.
SSM will be a Freeway resource but for the time being we're building it in the "free educational resources" area of Project HappyChild, to avoid having to set up three different sets of mirrored pages. This new resource will be linked in from the main index later, when more of the planned 300 free worksheets are on line. The final task in "free-to-print pages" this month has been to update the main "mirror sites" for the supplementary resources - Freeway, Andy's Guide to Pokemon and Sol's Guide to Harry Potter. This needed to be done at some stage! - and ensures that all pages across the site and mirrors are now fully integrated. This should give us a "level playing field" for the final major stage of pagebuilding for the site as a whole. How long this will take is anyone's guess - but the pagebuilding schedule has been updated with a view to completing all the supplementary resources currently under construction, by the end of next year. Sooner if possible! |
| Of course, "Accelerated Learning" technically should be included with the above. However Michael Tipper is snowed under with work commitments just now (speaking engagements and presentations to schools and businesses) and hasn't yet quite finished writing the October "Feature Article". This will go on line as soon as possible after being received here, check the "Latest Site News" page for details in a day or two.
Schools Interchange - new resources are added to this very large area whenever time allows. This month we have updated two country pages, Schools Slovenia, where some of the addresses have changed, and Schools Greenland, where we've added a new link to a much more comprehensive page about schools in the Qaanaaq ("Kay-nak") area of Greenland. Some delightful photos. If you have cached or printed-out pages for either of these pages, you may wish to update these. Syndromes - Thanks go to one of our visitors for forwarding details of The Travelers Protective Association of America and of their special fund to assist children and others with hearing loss or difficulty. "TPA has provided hundreds of children with scholarships for education and special equipment" - details and a website link have now been added to the Syndromes Links Index. |
| We had a delightful surprise this month with the arrival of a large package from overseas. Our thanks go to Pauline Munro at Corel Corporation, Canada for the kind gift of Corel Draw 10, PhotoPaint 10, Corel RAVE, Corel Gallery and other software for pagebuilding and graphics - these software packages will make a major difference to what we can achieve at the Project HappyChild site in the future.
Pauline is the new contact for Academic versions (for schools and charities) of Corel WordPerfect Suite 8, with which this website has primarily been built - we've updated the contact details on the relevant pages in the Shop and web-page-building-guide areas of the site, for schools and charities who would like to obtain a low-cost copy of WordPerfect Suite 8, and included the very-welcome gifts from Corel on our "Sponsors" page. The final pagebuilding additions this month have been to link in two new stories in the "Creativity" area of the site. A "Stories" index page has been created, the original story being "Glaxibel The Avenger" - the new items on line are "The Daffodil Principle" and "A Sandpiper to bring you joy". Worth a read. Alongside this new pagebuilding, we've taken the opportunity to upgrade the remainder of Area 6, including the pages for Kathryn Watts, who wrote some articles for Project HappyChild as a "Roving Reporter" when this website first went on line back in 1998. We'd like to thank Kathryn for all her hard work - these pages offer a unique insight into life in a number of countries and have drawn notable responses from visitors, particularly the Vietnam veteran who wrote to her after reading Article 8. Such letters make a world of difference, and we'd like to thank all the people who have been in touch after reading her writings. |
| This month, like the ones that preceded it, wouldn't have been complete without the "obligatory virus" ... and arrive it did, and caught us just after we'd sent out the warning to our Newsletter mailing list. "Nimda" alerts came to us from a variety of sources and we decided to mail out before collecting the Microsoft "patch" for our own computer ..... with disastrous effects. We lost the whole of the following day, but James was able to get everything up and running that evening and we've been operating with Anti-Virus software since that time.
Just as well probably as a "Kakworm" virus came in yesterday - swiftly zapped by Norton - a bit disconcerting though. Like many of you we've avoided leaving Anti-Virus running simply because of the effects on computer speed, but these latest episodes have made it more than clear that we can't take these types of risks in the future, especially with the volumes of mail that come in here these days. Wishing all of you a stress-free October,
Penny. ****************************************************************** |
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| Project HappyChild News - October 2001 -
http://www.happychild.org.uk/nvs/news/2001/10.htm located in Area 6 at Project HappyChild - linking children all across the world
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