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People are being killed in Syria every day. This means babies, children, their mums, their dads, their wider family members - the killing is indiscriminate.
No matter how badly you're hurt, you can't go to a hospital. The military keep them under surveillance and injured civilians dare not seek treatment. And there's almost no medical equipment or drugs available where the shelling is happening, so for people who are critically injured to have any chance of survival, these supplies have to be bought outside Syria and brought in secretly, at great risk to those who do it.
Seeing footage of a baby with its foot blown off, screaming in agony, is someting I won't ever forget. Without surgical facilities, antibiotics, or the right sized cannulas to administer pain relief, that baby may well not survive. With access to some drugs and equipment, it stands a chance.
Hand in Hand for Syria, a charity run by a group of Syrian doctors based in the UK, is successfully operating inside Syria and the borders. But the supplies they need cost money. Helping to pay for them is something you can do that will quite literally, make the difference between someone dying and someone living.
If you can give the price of a £3 bottle of Calpol, we'd be thrilled. If you can give more, please do. We'd like to raise £10,000. Before you donate, please read instructions on how to enter the raffle in pink below.
- An hour's childcare fees @ £5 could buy a course of children's antibiotics
- An hour's babysitting @ £9 could buy a baby sized breathing mask
- A week's child benefit @ £20.40 could buy sachet of instant blood-clotting granules that stops a major bleed
- A day's childcare fees @ £40 could buy formula, nappies and other supplies needed to keep an injured baby fed and clean for six weeks.
- A month's child benefit @ £88.40 could buy a resuscitator
Money raised will go towards buying these types of supplies, and could also contribute towards the price of anaesthetic machines (£3,200) ambulances (£5,000-£7,000) and other drugs that will keep people alive for long enough for them to reach the relative safety of refugee camps across the borders.
Everyone who donates will be entered into a raffle with some fantastic prizes - see below.
UK tax rules mean that JustGiving cannot claim Gift Aid on contributions made for a raffle draw, so if you would like to be entered into the raffle DO NOT TICK the Gift Aid box.
Finally, I NEED YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS in order for me to send you your ticket numbers AND contact you if you win! This option comes up at the very end of the donation process: after you have left a message.
If you forget to do this, please email me at orphthepuffin@gmail.com
For every pound you donate you will be assigned one ticket. To keep costs down, rather than posting tickets out you will be emailed with your ticket numbers.
The draw will be made in mid September.
Prizes include:
- 2-hour coaching session from Learnflow with Monica Hernanz worth £250, to explore your career aspirations or get confidential guidance about a difficult problem at work.
- Dinner, bed and breakfast at Cotswolds hotel, Lower Slaughter Manor
- A week's stay for two people worth 1000Euros in award-winning reporter Sue Lloyd Roberts' stunning Mallorca hotel
- A basket of Fairtrade Divine chocolate
- Weekend stay at Rock Mill, Devon
- £100 voucher for dinner at Calcot Manor Tetbury, Gloucestershire
- £250 haircut from celebrity hairdresser Jamie Stevens
- A Stephen Fry signed autobiography
- Cupcakes Galore cookery course at Leah’s Pantry, Derbyshire plus one night midweek stay for two at Harrop Fold Farm B&B
- £1250-worth of People Tree vouchers
- Silver necklace by award-winning jeweller James Newman
- Selection of signed novels by thriller writer Mo Hayder
- Confiserie Florian goodies basket
- Set of five Sawdays travel books
- £50 Boden voucher
- Three hour 'breakthrough session' with wellbeing coach Eve Menezes Cunningham
- Candlelit dinner and canapes, bed and breakfast for two (midweek) at Combe House, Devon
- One-day course at Swinton Park Cookery School with Rosemary Shrager, plus Rosemary’s new book ‘Absolutely Foolproof Cooking for Family and Friends”
- £100 voucher from Me&Em
- Ethical hamper sponsored by Triodos Bank including: a signed Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall book and goodies from Neals Yard, the Visionary Soap Company, Cafedirect and Better Food
Thank you for supporting Hand in Hand for Syria through the Stop Killing Children Campaign.