40 hour famine

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 6, Issue 231, 16 February 1988, Page 15

40 hour famine

This year's World Vision 40 Hour Famine will focus on the needs of children around the world. Executive Director Peter McNee says there is a desperate need to affirm the value of children - to highlight their needs for food, healthcare, education and shelter. If these needs are not met in time, disability or death is the result. "The abuse and murder of Teresa Cormack and Louisa Damodran has got under my skin. We must learn to value children before it is too late," he says. Money raised on the famine this year - from 8am 25 March to noon 27 March - will go towards childcare in World Vision's community-to-community projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America as well as towards meeting relief needs in Ethiopia, Mozambique and India. A Junior Famine will end at 4pm on Saturday 26 March. More than $11 million has been raised by New Zealanders throUgh 40 Hour Famines since they began in 1975. Last year's Famine focused on the importance of immunisation and nearly $1.5 million was raised. The money has been used to immunise thousands of children in Senegal, Chad, Zimbabwe, Sudan and Papua New Guinea against such killer diseases as measles, tetanus, whooping cough, polio, tuberculosis and diphtheria.