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| Sasha Chanoff and Rose Mapendo |
Mapendo International’s Lifeline Campaign to Help the World’s Refugees
posted: 07/16/2007
Honoring Rose Mapendo – mother, survivor of the Congolese wars, and human rights activist, for which she was named the Grand Award winner of the 5th Anniversary Volvo for life Awards – Mapendo International held its first Lifeline event in New York City on June 11, 2007. The event, hosted by Joshua Mailman, succeeded brilliantly in bringing together longtime and newer donors to begin the Lifeline Campaign, a long-term initiative for underwriting networks of support for the refugees Mapendo International serves. The fundraising portion of the evening surpassed expectations, raising over $300,000 in support of the program’s mission.
Under this new initiative, a “Lifeline” designates an individual or collective commitment to fund Mapendo International’s health, research, and advocacy programs. By uniting individuals, corporations, and foundations to the cause, Mapendo International seeks to attain the resources and critical mass of talent to respond even more effectively and rapidly to emerging crises overseas. The Lifeline Campaign also seeks to establish a solid financial footing to bolster any future large-scale operations on behalf of the world’s growing refugee populations. These operations include ancillary services, such as newsletters, contact information for resettled refugees, and donor trips connecting Lifeline members to the lives of refugees as they make their journey from peril and limbo towards safety, opportunity, and hope.
The evening’s emotional highpoints came when Co-founder and Executive Director, Sasha Chanoff, introduced Rose's powerful Volvo for life Awards documentary. Rose Mapendo spoke after the screening, providing an extraordinarily moving address and first-person account as to the ravages of war, and the plight of the world’s war refugees.
An action-oriented organization, Mapendo International identifies and assists Africa’s forgotten and most at-risk refugees, including orphans, widows, torture and rape victims, HIV-positive refugees and targets of genocide.
How You Can Help Rose Mapendo
To see and read more about Rose and her family’s experience in the Congo, click here: http://www.mapendo.org/about_rose.cfm. To learn more about Mapendo International, and how you can make a difference, please visit: www.mapendo.org.
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