Global Action for Children

Dear GAC Supporters,

Meeting with Congressional offices to encourage them to vote for all the ways we can support kids worldwide isn’t out of the ordinary for us at GAC. Something stood out though last week when we led a delegation to Capitol Hill with representatives from UNICEF and the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, the World Health Organization, and the GAVI Alliance to talk about how important vaccines are for kids.

It’s a rare and special moment when all these big players can come together to speak in one voice for children. And that one voice is saying we can save 2 million more children’s lives each year if we invest in global immunization programs. GAC played a pivitol role in bringing together these key players in Washington, DC to present one strong and united message to members of Congress.

You already know about vaccines against polio and tetanus but we have new vaccines that take aim against the leading killers of kids worldwide—pneumonia and diarrhea. These discoveries have such great potential for our world and it’s time we invest in them.

As powerful as it is to be fighting alongside the world’s leading organizations for child health, we need you to add your voice and spread the word about the hope vaccines bring us. Here’s how you can with a couple simple clicks:

The popular website Change.org is having a competition for the top 10 ideas that will change the world. The winning ideas will then be presented to the Obama Administration. Our partners GAVI and Save the Children have submitted an idea for the US to fight pneumonia and diarrhea with vaccines and other solutions. Their idea has made it to the final round and now it needs your vote by this Friday when the polls close! So please do by clicking here and don’t forget to pass it on to your friends.

Sincerely,
Leila Nimatallah, Policy Director

GAC is teaming up this month with our amazing partner Planet Awesome Kid to host a benefit event for GAC and kids in New York City on Saturday, March 20th. And you’re invited!

This is no ordinary benefit either. It all starts as the child guests check in at a kids’ size airport check-in counter and receive their passport for a journey into an immersible world of experience and interactivity called Planet Awesome. Throughout their journey they will experience things out of the ordinary… awesome things… like drinking hot cocoa with giant squirrels in the forest, playing ring toss with an octopus in the ocean, striking a pose in a professional photo shoot, and dancing in the city to a celebrity DJ… just to name a few.

GAC will also have activities to engage kids to help them speak out on behalf of other kids around the world. So if you or your friends are near New York please click here to buy tickets to support us. If you live elsewhere, you can also always support our cause for kids by donating to GAC.

GAC:
GAC joins partners to celebrate World Read Aloud Day
March 3, 2010: Reading aloud to young children is a building block to their future success. Today, GAC spread the word about the importance of reading aloud and early childhood development with partners LitWorld and FreeBalance.

Health:
VOA: 85 Million Children To Be Immunized Against Polio In West And Central Africa
March 10, 2010: United Nations and international aid agencies are kicking off a mass polio immunization campaign across 19 countries in West and Central Africa on Saturday.  The agencies say they aim to vaccinate more than 85 million children under five against the poliovirus in an effort to stop a year-long polio epidemic in the region.

Education:
Oman: Education is the main pillar for progress in Arab world
March 8, 2010: Omani Deputy Prime Minister for the Council of Ministers, Sayyid Fahd bin Mahmoud al Said leads a new review of how basic and secondary education of children can benefit the Arab world and all the world.

Protection:
Child poverty in Sierra Leone
March 4, 2010: Children’s charity World Vision is helping communities overcome poverty and ignorance in Africa. Chris Harvey sees the results of child sponsorship in rural Sierra Leone.

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