Welcome back to the 2nd month of the '12 Months of Giving' project!
Now, I realise at the end of my last post I said I would see you again in early October, and that now it is only a week and a couple of days until October is no more (Where did the time go?!) But I promise I have been doing the behind the scenes bits for further months, as well as juggling school assignments and assessments as we approached the half term holiday!! Despite these everyday, normal person excuses, I must admit I had a bit of a idea block this month! I knew I only had two weeks within this month where I could potentially clear my days, and was determined to find a charity idea that meant you all could help the cause first hand too, without having to visit another Just Giving page with my face on!! Anyway, there I was on my commute to school, devising weekly plans of how I would get everything I needed to do done, listing, emailing, texting, and calling everyone I knew, racking my brain for a monthly good deed, when I glanced at the screen to check what stop my train had reached and saw a poster for this month's cause. So after all of the thinking and debating, mind mapping and list making, I realised that I better crawl out from behind my rock of hiding and dish out the goods!
This month I am raising awareness and donating to World Vision, as part of their 'A Night of Hope' campaign for October.
World Vision have launched their 'A Night of Hope' campaign this year throughout October, in order to raise funds to help the children of Syria who are constantly surrounded by fear and violence. The idea of this campaign is to turn this year's Halloween into 'A Night Of Hope' by spreading awareness for children in Syria who are experiencing consequences of the fourth year of the country's civil war, including deaths of family members, plus nights of bombings and fighting.
World Vision's 'A Night Of Hope' campaign provides 3 easy steps to show how you can provide support and raise awareness for the children of Syria:
1) Carve a heart within your pumpkin for Halloween
2) Take a photo of your carved heart pumpkin, and share your pumpkin on the World Vision Facebook or Twitter page, linking this '12 Months of Giving' blog, and using the hashtag '#ANightOfHope'
3) Text 'HEART' to 70060 to donate £5 to World Vision, and to help the children of Syria
To find out more about these steps, the 'A Night of Hope' campaign, or how you will support the work of World Vision, you can visit their website here: http://www.worldvision.org.uk/get-involved/night-hope/
The videos shared on this website, following one 8 year old boy Hani's story are so powerful, and are excellent for anyone learning about the charity, and the work that World Vision do for Syrian refugees like Hani. Upon seeing the poster for the campaign on my train, and visiting the website to learn more, I soon realised that although I had been stressing about assessments and school assignments for the past couple of weeks, carving a pumpkin, posting a photo to raise awareness, and donating by text message, was the least I could do as I watched a video of an 8 year old Syrian refugee within which he expressed "I love everything about school." The optimism and hopefulness shown within the promotion for the 'A Night Of Hope' campaign is so inspiring, and definitely something which I support not only in desperate circumstances such as current Syria, but across so many people's lives and situations. The way this cause stumbled into my regular daily commute shows just how easy it is to help another cause or individual, and I hope that you will take this opportunity with World Vision to change someone's life by following the 3 simple steps.
I will see you at the end of the month with pictures and evaluations of how I supported the 'A Night Of Hope' World Vision campaign, featuring my heart carved pumpkin, shared image, link to this blog, campaign hashtag, and donation text message!
Be good!
Kizzy :)
