Heide Simonis
Dear Sir or Madam,
dear founders of GoAhead!,
with great joy I heard about the creation of GoAhead! where young people came back from a year in South Africa and want to continue their efforts to help children without perspective. Educational projects shall give them a chance for a brighter future, pre-schools provide three-year olds with professional care and a warm meal a day. Orphans shall receive financial backing from sponsors, volunteers from Europe get a chance to join in.
The toll the HIV / AIDS pandemic takes from children is hard to capture in numbers. Worldwide, the disease has orphaned more than 15 million children - more than there are in the whole of Germany. Most of those orphans live in South Africa. They have no access to schooling as they are lacking funds to pay for school fees, uniforms, bus tickets, notepads and books. Often children are discriminated against because their relatives are positive. Starvation and homelessness are ubiquitous, and there are not enough people to take care of the traumatised survivors.
We cannot afford to be indifferent towards the unimaginable destitution. GoAhead! goes the only way that can help children in this situation: sending them to school. Enabling them to develop their own personalities, take care of themselves and turn their fortune around. Teaching them not only to read and write but also educating them in life sciences like HIV prevention. This is the only chance they get to escape from the vicious cycle of poverty.
In the name of UNICEF I urge you to go on as you have! I wish you the best of luck and lots of new colleagues.
Heide Simonis, former chairman of UNICEF Germany