Early this year Save the Children launched the biggest global campaign in its 90 year history. A shocking 10 million children die every year before their 5th birthday from illnesses like diarrhoea, pneumonia and malaria - illnesses that we can prevent and treat at very little expense.

          Every child's death is tragic. But  mothers living in developing countries are much more likely to experience this unbearable loss. A mother in sub-Saharan Africa, for example, is nearly 100 times more likely than a mother in a developed country to lose her child in the first 5 years of life. In Sierra Leone the rates of survival are so drastically low that 1 in 4 children do not make the age of 5.

          In February this year two of the members of our local branch met HRH The Princess Royal, Patron of Save the Children, at Leeds Civic Hall, where they attended an event to celebrate volunteering for the charity in the North of England. 150 volunteers from branches and shops across the North were introduced to the Princess and she thanked us for our hard work and dedication in raising funds for the world's poorest and most neglected children. We also saw a film of the work in progress at Kroo Bay, a slum built on a rubbish dump on the banks of the filthy "Crocodile River" in Freetown, Sierra Leone. For example, volunteers, who live in the area themselves, are trained to identify and treat diarrhoea and to advise on prevention of the disease in their own neighbourhood. Other local volunteers are labouring to stop the river flooding and so reduce the spread of disease.

          This is just one area of the world where life-saving work among children and their families is made possible by the supporters of Save the Children. Can you help us to continue and to increase this work, to reach even more children with the    constructive help they so urgently need? We would welcome any help you can give us, either by joining our small committee to give us new fund-raising ideas, helping, or contributing to those events in any way possible. Our next big event will be our shop, at the Old Schoolroom in Middleton on July 25th /26th – come and meet us there and find out more! You can also contact Jan Richardson on 01751 473877 and for a wider view, including more information on the work at Kroo Bay, log on to the new, fully interactive website - www.savethechildren.org.uk 

Gill Freeman.