Fundraising hope to prevent the spread of HIV
Howard Lake | 21 July 2009 | News
A charity which aims to educate the prevention of HIV infection in children and teenagers in Africa is the latest in a string of organisations to join new fundraising website gift2help.com which launches in August.
Africaid WhizzKids United chose KwaZulu Natal as its starting point because it has one of the highest new HIV infection rates amongst young people anywhere in the world. The prevalence rate is shockingly around 16% in 15 to 24 year olds overall and an alarming 60% plus amongst 15-24 year old women in some areas.
Founder and CEO of Africaid WhizzKids, Marcus McGilvray, initially attempted to educate street children to the dangers of HIV in the classroom with the offer of a football game as their reward for attendance. However it soon became apparent that to harness their interest, the educational element had to be dropped as the kids weren’t interested in learning but simply wanted to play football. Consequently, the classroom was moved permanently to the football pitch, with a focus on relating football to life skills as an effective method of getting the message across.
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Marcus comments: “These kids come from extremely difficult backgrounds where family structure is often void, poverty is rife, opportunities scarce and where HIV prevention hangs low on their daily list of priorities.
“Football is a universally loved game and the kids have responded incredibly well to volunteers teaching and playing the game, while acting as positive role models. In fact, it wasn’t long before they learned that there were alternative methods of dealing with disputes and finally stopped brandishing knives and throwing stones at each other.
“The enormity of the HIV pandemic is overwhelming and we firmly believe that when it launches in August, gift2help.com will make a significant impact by not only providing people with an insight into this enormous problem, but will also attract donations to ensure that this terrible and preventable disease is contained before it personally affects us all.”
gift2help.com is unlike any other charity-giving website in that it is totally free of charge for the charity involved. 100% of every donation made will go direct to Africaid WhizzKids United and there is no cost at all to the organisation.
Donors will be able visit the website, choose Africaid WhizzKids United from a list of other charities and view the shopping list of items that it requires for the everyday running of its projects. For those wanting to support more than one charity, gift2help.com will provide a simple and easy platform to donate to several charities in one easy transaction.
There is still time for your charity to get involved and start fundraising through gift2help.com. For more information about joining email Markus at:
in**@gi*******.com
www.gift2help.com
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.