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This is what the Stephen Lewis Foundation does with your generous donations

For those of you participating in our Dare to Draw challenge, your kids have been dutifully creating drawings everyday for the last month while you sponsor them to do so. Now that the campaign’s wrapping up, it’s time to turn in those generous pledge dollars!

Want a little more info about the Stephen Lewis Foundation? Here’s what they do:

“The Stephen Lewis Foundation was created with the express purpose of putting money directly in the hands of community-based organizations working on the frontlines of the AIDS pandemic in Africa. We support women, children orphaned by AIDS and the indomitable grandmothers who have stepped in to care for them, and sustain associations of people living with HIV and AIDS, who are bravely declaring their status and working to address stigma, educate their communities and press for change.”  Read more...

The daring drawers take on a virus

Teaching kids about HIV/AIDS is no easy task, even when you break it down into parts. Kids may know the word virus, but since it’s something we can’t see without the help of a microscope, it’s hard to know exactly what is it a what’s it’s doing in someone’s body. We thought getting kids to illustrate “virus” would yield some interesting results and we haven’t been disappointed.

Above, Cynthia’s kids, Suvi, Max and Finn, all drew a single cell of a viral bug and assigned it a name and personality. From left to right: the Bully Bug, which pretends to be nice, the Blood Bug, which presumably gets into your blood and wrecks havoc and the Footie Bug, which we’re guessing turns one into a soccer hooliganism. We hear it’s caused quite the epidemic in parts of the UK. Or maybe it just likes feet, we’re not sure but it looks fantastic.  Read more...

Do you Dare to turn the tide of AIDS in Africa?

OK Darers, our Dare to Draw campaign officially kicks off on Monday, Jan. 16, but we’re so thrilled that so many of you have already shown some interest in helping out! The Dare to Draw Facebook page is filling up with all kinds of supportive messages and we couldn’t be more thankful for our awesome readers.

Have you downloaded the pledge? Or, like Hannah above, you could create your own pledge, just so long as it’s a promise to create 30 drawings in 30 days and help us raise money for the Stephen Lewis Foundation.

Next steps: We suppose you and your kids want to know what they’re be drawing! It just so happens we’ve made a handy little chart so parents and kids can keep track of the drawings day to day.

 Read more...