EARTHTONES BENEFIT CONCERT - 2010

Right To Play is the leading international humanitarian and development organization using the transformative power of sport and play to build essential skills in children and thereby drive social change in communities affected by war, poverty and disease. Right To Play creates a safe place for children to learn and fosters the hope that is essential for children to envision and realize a better future. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child guides our work. Right To Play programs target the most marginalized individuals including girls, persons with disabilities, children affected by HIV and AIDS, street children, former child combatants and refugees.

Right To Play has been a pioneer in innovation for social change and has a track record for creating programs that are both sustainable and replicable.

Working in both the humanitarian and development context, Right To Play trains local community leaders as Coaches to deliver our programs in 23 countries affected by war, poverty and disease in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and South America. Our programs incorporate a unique methodology that uses sport and play as tools for learning in four development impact areas: Basic Education and Child Development, Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, Conflict Resolution and Peace Building, and Community Development and Participation.

Lazos Solidarios
Lazos Solidarios is a non-profit organization with the goal of finding and creating bonds between indigenous communities and above all creating native solidarity. In effect, we hope to promote the progress of the marginalized, promoting their culture, collective justice, equality and liberty.

Their primary goal is to bring to Vicabamaba, Peru, a land of both stunning beauty and extreme poverty, volunteer contributions from united, progressive participants. In doing so, living conditions of this community will be greatly improved. They aim to elevate the level of understanding of the population of Vilcabamba, especially with respect to children, as this institution believes that well-utilized education is the foundation of progress. Lastly, they hope to convert Vilcabamba into a functional agricultural community so that in the future, it serves as a model for other disadvantaged communities. Promote the cultural exchange between populations of different realities and customs (volunteers and the community of Vilcabamba), and in doing so, benefit both parties.

Past beneficiaries include: The Nelson Mandela Children's Fund, CIH Cambodia Water Project, Panzi Hospital Fundraising Campaign, Free the Children, the Kampot HIV Village, Orphelinat Mia-Mo', Venancius Rukero AIDS Orphans and Vulnerable Children Foundation, Hemoglobal, Albanian Book Project, The Fistula Foundation, Dahanu(India), The Huruma Centre(Nkubu, Kenya), Child Haven (child homes in India, Nepal, Tibet & Bangladesh), the HIV/AIDS village (Kep Region in Cambodia), The Mingha Project (Cameroon), MSMF (schools in Andra Pradesh, India), Guluwalk (Acholi children of Uganda), and other needy parts of the world that the Medical Society (student government) and UTIHP has sought to help.

Below are photos and descriptions of some of the children and programs that we have supported in the past.

Children at school in Dahanu, India

The Huruma Center, Kenya

Child Haven International, Inspired by the ideals and philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi, Child Haven International was founded in 1985. We assist children and women in 4 countries, who are in need of food, education, health care, shelter and clothing, emotional and moral support. Child Haven has four homes in India, one in Nepal, one in Tibet and one in Bangladesh. Our homes accept children who are disabled, parentless, or from socially disadvantaged situations - and who are destitute, i.e. do not receive even one good meal a day. Girls and boys are treated equally, and without regard to race, caste, colour, religion or culture. Living is simple and meals are vegetarian. We try not to Westernize the children, but rather attempt to raise them according to the highest ideals of their own cultures. We respect the heritage of each child, whether Hindu, Muslim, Jain, Sikh, Christian, Buddhist, secular or other. Destitute children from birth to six years of age are referred to us by local social welfare agencies. Child Haven Homes provide full care through high school (Tenth Standard), and then provide vocational training so that each child can enter the local society as a self-sufficient adult. Another aspect of Child Haven's Gandhian philosophy is our commitment to improving the condition of women through direct employment, education, medical aid, legal aid, and training opportunities.

The Butterfly Garden(Sri Lanka), The Butterfly Garden is a healing centre in the Northern region of Sri Lanka for children & youth who have been traumatized by decades of civil war. The healers use art, dance, music & theatre to rehabilitate these children and to let them express their feelings and retell their stories. The garden is a new world in the midst of a conflict zone, complete with a massive boat suspended in the air, tunnels and sandpits, photo galleries, live animals and faclilities for woodwork and handicrafts. The program is modeled on the Spiral Garden at the Bloorview-McMillan Rehabilitation Centre in Toronto and has had much Canadian input through sponsorship and training to a study of the extent of clinically-significant psychological trauma in these children.

The HIV/AIDS Village(Kep Region, Cambodia),The HIV/AIDS village in Kep Region, Cambodia is one of desperation and squalor. It is in the small geographic area of the country where we, the University of Toronto's Faculty of Medicine, are setting up a research and teaching field station. We want to work with this community of 100 HIV positive persons and their families to help them with their co-morbidities and with the AIDS itself. A young family doctor, now doing her MA in anthropology, is going to work in that village and do a feasibility study for us over the next six months. Any funds donated to this village would be put to good use in helping care for the many sick members present.

The Mingha Project(Cameroon), In the local Cameroonian Patois dialect, mingha means "my child." The Mingha Project reaches out to women in impoverished isolated rural villages of Cameroon to address mother-to-child HIV transmission - a means of HIV transmission that accounts for over 90% of infant and childhood cases of AIDS. Without the Mingha Project, these women would need to travel for many hours by foot and bush taxi to reach the nearest hospital, and the cost of the HIV test would be further prohibitive. Mingha educates these women about sexual health and HIV/AIDS, offers free prenatal HIV testing to pregnant women who are unable to afford testing, and provides counselling, care, and infant formula to seropositive mothers and their babies, including administration of anti-retroviral medications to the mother during labour and to the newborn. Based out of a small health care centre, the Mingha Project is a grassroots initiative run by volunteer physicians from Italy and local Cameroonian nurses. While only five villages are currently served, there are many more poor and isolated villages in the region that would benefit from Mingha's help. Funding is the only factor that is keeping the Mingha Project from reaching these other villages. Any funds donated by Earthtones to the Mingha Project will be used to pay for the HIV testing kits and infant formula that are central to this program.

MSMF (India) is an organization founded by Dr. Chandra Sankurathri in the name of his wife and daughters who were killed in the 1985 Air India Bombing. Dr. Chandra's organization has opened doors for young children in rural areas of Andhra Pradesh (the 5th largest state in India). These children, who would otherwise grow up thinking poverty was their allotted fate, are now attending, free of charge, the elementary school built by MSMF. The school employs ten teachers, and provides lunches, uniforms, equipment, transportation, medical check ups, eye care, glasses and medicine free ofcharge to these children. This school has provided children and their families with hope for the future.

GULUWALK (Uganda) is an organization that raises money for the Acholi children of Uganda who live in constant fear of abduction, rape or even being killed by the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army), a rebel group. Tens of thousands of children ranging in age from 3-17 endure many hardships, including having to trek up to 20 km to urban centres each and every night in order to protect themselves. Guluwalk is an organization founded by two Canadians whose hearts went out to the suffering children of Northern Uganda.

Pipad is a non-profit organization that promotes sustainable self-development among populations in need in western Cameroon. PIPAD was started by a small group of people in Cameroon who saw the need to work with the local population in order to identify, analyze and research current problems and then to help with sustainable solutions. Since its conception in 2001, PIPAD has grown and staff have formed partnerships with the University of Toronto Medical Education Program and with infection disease staff at a hospital in Italy. Over the past three years, six medical students from the University of Toronto have gone to Cameroon to work with PIPAD and have seen the innovative way that staff work to address difficult issues such as the HIV/AIDS epidemic and widespread infectious disease due to the poor water sanitation. PIPAD staff have also formed supportive relationships with local health centres and orphanages in order to help care for the regions most vulnerable.

Current projects include: HIV/AIDS education programs, a support/education group for children and teens affected by HIV/AIDS, and a women’s health centre that help sero-positive women to avoid vertical transmission of HIV. PIPAD has also completed several large-scale water sanitation projects, which currently provide clean water for over 15,000 local residents.

CIHCambodia has had a presence for approximately 5 years in the rural region of Kep in Southern Cambodia, where 80% of the population live off the land. There are low levels of education and literacy, and all governmental systems lack adequate infrastructure. As a result, the health care system, along with other government-sponsored social services, suffers greatly.

Cambodia has some of the worst health indicators in all of Southeast Asia. On this basis, CIHCambodia has continued to conduct community-based health research and implement culturally sensitive and sustainable public health initiatives to satisfy some of the most basic and crucial needs.