Leading schools work together to give education and hope to refugees and orphans.
Students from some of Oxfordshire’s leading schools are coming together on the evening of Wednesday 5 February to support the education of much less fortunate children – Syrian children in a refugee camp in Lebanon and orphans in the slums of Zambia.
Under the title of Care Across the Continents students from schools in Oxford and Abingdon are putting on an evening of music in St Michael and All Angels Church in Summertown in aid of two charities which share the conviction that education gives hope to those who otherwise have none.
Embrace the Middle East has a programme in Lebanon to enable the children of Syrian refugees to go to school.
Cecily’s Fund does the same for orphans and vulnerable children in the slums of three of Zambia’s main cities.
Alison Eastwood, the organiser of the evening, says it has a special resonance for her family. “We used to live in Syria and loved the country and its people. We were in Syria in 1997 when we heard the tragic news of our daughter Cecily’s death in a road accident in Zambia. She had been in her gap year before going up to Cambridge and had been working with a local NGO in the slums of Zambia’s second city helping the community to look after the thousands of orphans created by the AIDS pandemic. The family decided that enabling destitute children to go to school would be the best possible way to commemorate her. Cecily’s Fund was born, and Syrian friends were some of our first supporters. Zambia is still suffering the effects of the AIDS pandemic and there is still desperate need for Cecily’s Fund’s support if Zambia’s orphaned and vulnerable children are to have a future.
But now Syrians need our help in the same way. We are therefore delighted to be working with Embrace the Middle East to enable Syrian refugee children in Lebanon to go to school.”
Background
Syria had a population of 22 million when the civil war started. Half a million have been killed. Six million are reckoned to be displaced within Syria. Five million are registered refugees outside the country, almost one million of them in Lebanon. There are probably many more who have not been registered. Perhaps forty percent of all refugees are children. If they do not get an education the civil war will not only have stolen their homes; it will have stolen their future.
Zambia was one of the countries hardest hit by the AIDS pandemic. At its height 20% of the adult population were HIV-positive. Thanks to internationally financed therapy HIV is no longer a death sentence but it is still the case that over 10% of the population are children who have lost one or both parents and Zambia is one of the world’s most unequal countries. Its orphans and vulnerable children are the poorest of the poor. They need education if they are to have a future. Cecily’s Fund currently enables over 3000 to go to school. It is a small professional NGO based in Witney.
Participants on 5 February come from the following schools – Abingdon, Headington, Headington Prep, The Dragon, New College School, Summer Fields, St Edwards, Wheatley Primary and the DIY theatre company choir.
Note for Editors
Alison Eastwood (07870 893223) and Basil Eastwood, former British Ambassador to Syria and founder Chair of Cecily’s Fund (07969 970003) are available for interview.
More information on cecilysfund.org and embraceme.org