Hi All!
We wanted to update you on our Second Annual Fundraiser, which was hosted for the Christie Refugee Shelter. To reiterate what was said in our initial post for this year, as of 2018, the UNHCR estimates that there are over 25.4 million refugees globally, and of this large and unfortunate number, more than half are children. Although this number is massive, there is also roughly 40 million internally displaced people around the world (people who have fled their home but not their country). Over 40% of these refugees actually come from 3 countries – Syria (6.3 million), Afghanistan (2.6 million) and South Sudan (2.4 million).
At the Christie Refugee Centre, 63% of the refugees served are women, 35% are under the age of 12, and 16% are single female parents. The goal that we had this year was to provide the shelter with 30 backpacks, and we are very proud and excited to say we were able to do 50 backpacks, filled with all of the necessities for students, as well as donate leftover funds! Amazing turnout for a one week fundraiser – we doubled the amount of backpacks we did last year! Thank you to everyone for the support and donations, we wouldn’t be able to do it without you all!
When we went to drop off the backpacks, we met with the supervisor Gomo, who told us a bit about the families and what the shelter does, and it was truly amazing to see it firsthand.
Over the next year, we are working towards fully registering B4B, so that we may be able to gain support from larger firms and donors. Below are a couple of photos from this year!
We’re looking forward to making this bigger and better each coming year, and we hope that you will all continue to support us!
Best,
Backpacks for Brainiacs Team