by Virginia Sowers, Community Manager
Shawna and Keifer Thompson
ChildFund’s Live! concert series picks up in March with Thompson Square, the husband-and-wife duo of Shawna and Keifer Thompson.
Working with various performing artists, our LIVE! concert series seeks to introduce new audiences to ChildFund’s work in 31 countries and the life-changing impact of child sponsorship.
Soon after their 2010 signing with Stoney Creek Records, Thompson Square, also known as T2, released their self-titled debut album, which included the platinum-selling, Billboard number 1 country single “Are You Gonna Kiss Me or Not,” a triple winner at the 2011 American Country Awards.
With two GRAMMY nominations and a growing fan base, Thompson Square is fast on the rise. Throughout the coming months, Thompson Square will perform nationwide, including many appearances with Lady Antebellum and Darius Rucker on Lady A’s “Own the Night” tour.
With their wide appeal, T2 is sure to reach diverse audiences, presenting a great opportunity to share the message and experience of sponsoring a child.
At each concert, Thompson Square will be telling fans about ChildFund’s mission. ChildFund is also seeking current ChildFund sponsors to volunteer at the concert venues. See the tour schedule for a concert near you. Volunteers will be asked to share their own experiences of sponsoring a child and assist with signing up new sponsors at the events.
Volunteers are needed over the next several months. Learn more by downloading the LIVE! Volunteer FAQs. To volunteer, call 800-458-0555 or send email to Questions@ChildFund.org.
To celebrate a day that comes once only every four years, 
But can you identify those countries in photos? Today we’re launching a fun promotion on Facebook to put your knowledge of ChildFund program countries to the test.
ChildFund’s answer to this problem is building schools so children can be children – spending their days learning and out of harm’s way. In 2007, ChildFund partnered with World Learning for Educational Development, with nearly $3.5 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Labor and $1.25 million from ChildFund, to reduce the incidence of exploitative child labor by providing educational services for children and youth in Benguela province and in Luanda. The program withdraws or prevents 7,000 children from participating in exploitative child labor.
A new report by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) shows that 2011 was a game-changer for AIDS response with “unprecedented progress in science, political leadership and results.” The report also shows that new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths have fallen to the lowest levels since the peak of the epidemic. New HIV infections were reduced by 21percent since 1997, and deaths from AIDS-related illnesses decreased by 21 percent since 2005.
However, with these children’s optimism comes the reality of daily encounters with crime, hunger and disease. One 11-year-old from Ethiopia shares, “One thing I mostly worry about is HIV/AIDS.” Answers like this from children living in developing countries were not uncommon and reveal the plight many of them face.
When children in developing countries were asked what they would do if they were the leader of their countries, a young girl in Afghanistan responded: “I will not be able to become the president of the Afghanistan, as a woman doesn’t have the right to be the president of Afghanistan.”
