Project HappyChild NEWS

July / August 2002

[for ongoing updates, see Latest Site News]

Hi there! Regular site visitors will have been puzzled by the lack of updates recently on our Latest News page - for this our apologies - so much has been going on here behind the scenes, that updating the News page was left until things settled down a little, and an unscheduled emergency hospital op meant that this Newsletter has also been delayed, sorry, but unavoidable!

There's some interesting stuff in this issue, including a Manchester United match for UNICEF (tickets go on sale 19th July), an EC drawing competition for kids (prize is a trip to Brussels!) and a "Children helping Children" initiative organised jointly between UNICEF and the Times Educational Supplement, as well as a unique series of free worksheets linked with underwater photography.

FOOTBALL MATCH: UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, has just announced that Manchester United will play Boca Juniors of Argentina at Old Trafford on August 10th (kick-off 3pm) in a benefit match that will raise money to help support some of the world's most disadvantaged children.

Tickets for the game will go on general sale on 19th July 2002, and prices range from Ł20 for the best seats to just Ł5 for children and over-65s. Fans can order tickets via the internet (email: bocajuniors (at) manutd.co.uk), by post (Ticket & Membership Services Dept., Manchester United, Sir Matt Busby Way, Old Trafford, Manchester M16 ORA) or buy them in person at Old Trafford. From 2nd August tickets can be purchased by telephone (0870 4421999).

UNICEF have also joined forces with the Times Education Supplement to encourage schools to take part in a national fundraising appeal - "Children helping Children" - to help rebuild the education system in Afghanistan, and schools as far afield as Spain, Germany, Mauritius and Saudi Arabia have also become involved - see the TES website.

UNICEF have recently appealed for for US$17 million to help save six million children affected by the severe food crisis in Southern Africa - see their Emergency page.

CHILDREN'S DRAWING COMPETITION: The European Commission has asked us to publicise a competition for children aged 10-15 - to celebrate the European Day of Disabled People (December 3), they are organising a drawing competition. 10 to 15 year olds are asked to draw what they would change for disabled people in 2003 – the European Year of People with Disabilities. One winning drawing will be selected per country, and that drawing will be used as an official European Year postcard and e-card. Each national winner will also win a trip to Brussels for an Awards Ceremony. The closing date for receipt of entries is October 15, 2002 - see the competition page for more details.

THE "DOLPHIN MAN": We have a new - and very unusual - advertiser on the site this month - Tony Crabtree, who has devoted his life to exploring the ocean - and who regularly gives presentations to schools on a number of linked themes.

The "Dolphin Man" website has a breathtaking range of colour photographs, with no less than 75 *free* worksheets for schools (and home-schooling parents!) to make use of, described as "thematic, cross-curriculum ... develop a skill-based approach to topic work ... and can be used effectively in relation to aspects of the National Curriculum". A series of 4 interactive CD-roms (only Ł19.99 each plus p&p) are also available, complementary to the free worksheets (which have been written and beautifully illustrated by a Group 5 Primary Head Teacher).

On-line shopping facilities are not yet in place but it's possible to pre-order the inter-active CD roms and individual underwater photos for printing on A4, using the contact form at the "Dolphin Man" website.

MISC. EVENTS: Our thanks to Paul Flack for sending in details of an unusual children's event, the "Swaines Green Festival", being held over the weekend of 17th and 18th August, in Epping, England. The event features Britain's only solar-powered green circus, as well as a children's paper-making workshop, games, farm animals, organic food, and story tellers. Artists taking part are scheduled to include acts from Croatia, Japan, Israel, Canada, Finland, Belgium, Portugal, the USA, and various parts of Africa. Funds from the event are being channelled towards helping save the festival land from development and to purchase the land to protect it for future generations. E-mail Paul Flack - boobah (at) garlands.fsnet.co.uk - for further details.

FOCUS: One of the major success stories featured in the FOCUS area of the site is Harlem Educational Activities Fund, Inc (HEAF) whose work with inner city children has demonstrated that "environment is not destiny: all children can learn". A letter received here from the President's Office gives details of Sean Scott, HEAF's first Ivy League graduate (Yale 1998) who is now beginning a three-year residency in paediatrics at Albert Einstein, with plans to return to Harlem as a paediatric surgeon.

HEAF's astonishing success includes placing all its high-school graduates at major colleges this year, and the HEAF-sponsored Mott Hall chess team ranked #1 in NYC and #1 in NY State scholastic chess competitions.

However the aftermath of "September 11" has impacted on HEAF's financial situation, with expected funding failing to materialise, and they face a serious deficit for the financial year ending 31 August 2002. If anyone reading this can help, please contact Daniel Rose on (212) 210-6620 [ drose (at) rosenyc.com ].

ACCELERATED LEARNING: As many of you will have seen from the header graphic on the site, Michael Tipper's latest Feature Article is now on line: Applying Multiple Intelligences to Art, centering on Van Dyck's famous "Samson & Delilah" picture housed at the Dulwich Picture Gallery.

See the notes below the Article for details of the Dulwich's wide range of courses for children (as well as artist-led workshops at schools, as optional follow-ups to group visits), private views for teachers, and special arrangements for children and young people with medical and physical disabilities (including wheelchair use); also Special Needs outreach to schools.

GUESTBOOK: An Appeal has been received from Juliet Nabunje in Uganda, hoping to find a sponsor to see her through the remainder of her education and possibly university. This has now been added to the Guestbook and linked also from the page for Appeals & Projects in Uganda.

Our thanks incidentally to Alex Prince of TCI Nursery in the Gambia (whose Appeal in the website Guestbook was mentioned in our June newsletter) for sending full postal and telephone contact details. These have now been added to the Guestbook page - the most critical need the Nursery have is still for food for the children, and any help would be much appreciated.

DIRECTORY: Our thanks to Tracy Doig at EveryChild for sending new details for their entry in the Project HappyChild Directory. EveryChild is a new charity brought about by the merger of The Christian Children's Fund of Great Britain (CCFGB) and The European Children's Trust (ECT), previously listed in the Directory. Information about the work of EveryChild and updated contact details can be found in their Directory listing.

STATS: Major progress over the last few weeks has been down to Gareth Horth (a Director at GJG Electronics) who has set up dedicated Webalizer stats (with cron) to complement the Webalizer stats recently put in place by PlusNet, giving us detailed and comprehensive visit and "hits" figures across the board. June was amazing with over 1.35 million "hits" recorded [our on-site visitor count records only "visits"], with visitors coming from 117 countries worldwide.

Gareth's kind offer came via the PlusNet internal newsgroup (his "day job" relates to design of a vast range of electronics applications, for example electronic scoreboards) at a time when we weren't receiving any reliable stats, which of course are needed for the ongoing effective maintenance of the Project HappyChild site. The stats Gareth has kindly provided have made a significant difference in providing an accurate "picture" of the site as a whole, and we've recorded Gareth's contribution on our "Sponsors" page.

VIRUSES: The unbelievably heavy load of virus-carrying e-mails has finally been entirely dealt with by our wonderful ISP, PlusNet, who now block the e-mails from downloading here as well as notifying the sender of the problem, preventing us from having to do so. This has reduced the pressure here a great deal; the pressure in June was quite indescribable with the shed-loads of such e-mails being received here.

SPAM: "Spam" has also increased radically in recent weeks, to e-mail addresses featured on the site; PlusNet is working on a spam block we can use but in the meantime we have to a large degree protected the site by modifying the html code for e-mail addresses (some 80,000 of them) on all the site pages, in an attempt to block "harvesting" programs which lift e-mail addresses from the site pages. This is a partial but probably not total solution, and further measures are planned to camouflage e-mail addresses so they're still usable but not accessible by harvesting software, to safeguard the integrity of the site as a whole.

At times over the last few weeks, it's felt like we were under seige here! - but our ISP's security measures are making life saner again now. Probably just the penalties of such a high overall traffic level, but regardless this has been a very difficult time.

Thanks go to the many people who have been supportive over this period, and to all those who continue to publicise the site; my personal thanks go also to those who have helped in getting everything up to date again, whether in practical terms or help in other ways, much appreciated!

Best regards,

Penny.

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