In its' third year, Softies for Mirabel is an appeal for handmade stuffed toys to benefit children supported by The Mirabel Foundation. [more inside]
posted by hecho de la basura on Nov 5, 2009 - 2 comments

KOTO is a charity training restaurant for street children set up in 1996 in Hanoi, Vietnam by Vietnamese-Australian Jimmy Pham (pdf file).
Of the more than 100 or so former street kids who have learned cooking, waiting and bar skills, 100% of KOTO graduates have since become employed in hotels and restaurants in Hanoi.
KOTO stands for Know One Teach One and they provide uniforms, accomodation, most meals and a small wage during the traineeship.
Even Bill Clinton ate there.
Street children number something in the order of 20,000 or more in Vietnam and most head to the city from poor villages in the countryside, seeking their own slice of the wealth that transition to a market economy is said to generate. Most make little money shining shoes and selling postcards and many become involved in drugs, crime, prostitution or are harassed and arrested by the Police.
Hoa Sua restaurant is another exemplary training enterprise (French affiliation) run along similar lines to KOTO excepting that they also have bakery outlets and embroidery training.
These organizations are hopeful examples of education combatting the cycle of poverty.
(Aside: but no contribution to the Vietnamese economy will be forthcoming from U.S. chemical companies who supplied agent orange during the war)
posted by peacay on Mar 11, 2005 - 11 comments

A tour with WotC, a session to play D&D with them. Lifetime subscription to Steam. Ok, some items are better than others. But for Child's Play, the folks at PA are pulling one heckuva dream auction for geeks. More auction items are detailed, go to the the second news post.
posted by eurasian on Nov 18, 2004 - 6 comments

Child's Play Returns: Last year, Penny Arcade's Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins got sick of gamers being portrayed as violence-drenched dweebs and asked their readers to pitch in for a toy drive for Seattle's childrens' hospital. They ended up raising over a quarter of a million dollars in toys and cash in the space of just a few weeks. This year, they've added four more childrens' hospitals to their list for their readers to support during the holiday season. Mike and Jerry originally did this as a way to rebut the perception of gamers, but it also shows the power of personal credibility with regards to Web sites -- the people who contributed didn't just do it to redeem the image of gamers, they did it because Mike and Jerry asked them to. This political season we've seen how bloggers can add to the coffers of candidates by endorsing them to their readers, but I think this is an even stronger case of online personal credibility translating into action (a similar case, on a slightly smaller scale: Pamie Ribon of Pamie.com and her readers contributing nearly 500 new books to San Diego County Libraries). Would that more of the "big" bloggers and popular sites did more of this sort of thing.
posted by jscalzi on Oct 18, 2004 - 12 comments

Wil Wheaton sums it up best -- Penny Arcade's Child's Play, as posted previously, has been completely ignored by the media, despite donating over US$200,000 worth or toys and cash to a local children's hospital. 11,100 news items on violence in video games, 3 news items on video gamers opening their hearts and wallets.
posted by krisjohn on Jan 5, 2004 - 78 comments

UK bans controversial charity ads In recent weeks, UK newspaper readers have been opening their newspapers to find full-page, colour pictures of a cockroach crawling out of the mouth of a baby. Now the adverts, for children's charity Barnardo's, have been banned. Barnado's maintain that the pre-Christmas ads were justified as "a way of cutting through the apathy."
posted by TheophileEscargot on Dec 10, 2003 - 51 comments

In Uganda, 1.7 million children have been orphaned by Aids - a tenth of the world's total. Here is one woman's story. If you do not have the time to read through the article, please consider a visit to www.sendacow.org.uk, the charity mentioned in the article.
posted by davehat on Dec 1, 2003 - 4 comments

One thing you can do today is drop by The Kids AIDS Site and click the button to donate health care to children around the world.

Then come back and do it again tomorrow. And every day until we don't need a Kids AIDS Site anymore.
posted by jjg on Dec 1, 2000 - 0 comments