chidrenscup.org

Finally, the silence is being broken!

10 million African children orphaned by AIDS - And the worst is yet to come. Many of our partners know that four years ago Children's Cup started to shout at the top of our voice about the AIDS orphans problem.

Newsweek Cover January 28, 2000
"Ten Million AIDS Orphans in Africa"
This was one of the first national exposures of the scope of this problem.

ABC Nightline March 7,8,9, 2000
"AIDS Crisis Grips Africa"
Reporter David Marash presented an almost overwhelming account of Zimbabwe's AIDS orphans pandemic. In this three night special Ted Koppel urged the public to send help through Children's Cup along with a few other agencies his research found were doing a good job. He linked our web site on the ABC web site at:

http://abcnews.go.com/onair/Nightline/africaaids000307_marash.html

CBS 60 Minutes June 27, 2000
"Death By Denial"
This program comes to grips with the massive task of educating the people about avoiding AIDS and caring for the victims.

Many of our partners know that four years ago Children's Cup started to shout at the top of our voice about the AIDS orphans problem. The secular world does not want to know this-they want to ignore it. Sadly, Children's Cup received less than $200 in donations as a result of ABC's international endorsement. Reaching toward these hurting little ones requires a God-given compassion.

This I believe: The global pandemic crisis of children orphaned by AIDS is fast becoming one of the major issues that will most critically define our American society and the church. If a death-agent of this magnitude had been released by terrorists, every developed nation in the world would be clamoring for the apprehension of the killers and helping their victims.

Every literate man, woman and child would be thinking about the problem. Yet it seems that since this killer is a disease it's okay to ignore it. Only token attention has been given to it. Americans are asked to fund $40 billion for war in Kosovo yet only a few hundreds of thousands dollars have been released into help for the precious and hurting little victims. Even our politicians' most extreme promises-like $500 million-are so paltry. And, I can tell you that the gap between the promise and the actual dollars that reach the hurting people is obscene.

My thirty years in overseas relief work might give credibility to this next statement. I am soul-deep sure it is not an exaggeration but is true. One dollar given in God's love will accomplish more than many times that amount wrenched from our taxes. Example: In the late 1980's I was in a small plane flying over a war zone in Mozambique with a group that included the United Nations High Commission for Relief's top official for Mozambique. We were all tense because in this area the rebels had active bases with Stinger missiles-and there were frequent shoot-downs.. We were all thinking about serious things. The UNHCR Director leaned over to me and asked, "How do you do it? How do you get your people to go so far into danger? "Your staff starts at a risk level my staff won't even go to-and to get them to go even that far takes long and involved risk assessments and hazardous duty pay." "It's nothing I do," I responded. "Many of our people take no pay at all-they volunteer. Our staff does this because they feel God has called them to do it.

One dollar given in God's love will accomplish more than many times that amount wrenched from our taxes.

The part of relief work they most want to do is the hardest part-it's doing those things that actually put them in contact with the people. Close enough to touch the people means they're close enough to tell them how to find hope." That principle still holds true in this AIDS orphans crisis. The help that does trickle through the multinational bureaucracies only makes it so far. So often it stumbles and dissipates before it reaches the neediest ones. I've seen good people in government offices weep as they say they are powerless to make it work better. When the aid does get down to the level of the people, it often fails for lack of delivery infrastructure-that's exactly where 'Cup comes in. Over the years many other agencies and governments have asked us to take the relief on the last leg of it's journey into the hands of the people. Here's what happens when you help through Children's Cup. Our stateside overhead is covered by caring donors that designate their gifts "Where needed most." That means 100 cents of every designated dollar can go directly into the project, and as we interface with the authorities we seek and get permission to do exactly what the donation was given for-we control the release of the dollars. This bypasses the siphon points. Our 16 years of track record with these government bodies expedites the projects and opens official doors to us. And the children win.