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Every life is precious, which makes it all the more shocking that there are currently around 40,000 people in Germany with life-shortening diseases. Every year, around 5,000 children, adolescents and young adults die from these diseases. It is a big shock for the whole family when a family member receives such a diagnosis. But it is especially hard for the youngest members of the family.
Bärenherz Children's Hospice accompanies these families from the terrible diagnosis until after the child's death. This journey can take weeks, months or even years and is very stressful for everyone involved.
The hospice is an invaluable support. The children and their families receive round-the-clock nursing, psychosocial and therapeutic care. The aim is to provide relief from everyday problems or crisis situations, to maintain quality of life and to help them say goodbye to their child. Even after the child's death, relatives continue to receive care and support.
At the Bärenherz children's hospice, more than 60 staff work around the clock in three shifts, 365 days a year. They are dependent on donations in order to be able to cope with these tasks, as they do not receive any state funding and the health insurance companies do not cover all the costs. This is why betterplace.org is used to raise money, for example to sponsor a bed in a children's hospice.

The animal shelter in the north-east of the city of Berlin is Europe's largest and most modern animal shelter. The shelter is run by the Tierschutzverein Berlin (TVB) and covers an area of 16 hectares. The Berlin shelter has 4 large cat houses, six large dog houses, a small animal house, a bird house and a large enclosure for free-roaming cats.  In addition to the more familiar pets such as cats and dogs, the Tierheim Berlin also offers a temporary home to so-called farm animals and exotics. For example, pigs, goats, sheep, geese and chickens can be found on the animal welfare farm and reptiles, monkeys and other exotic animals can be found in an exotics station.
To do justice to the size, there is also a veterinary practice, an emergency cat station, a house for injured waterfowl and a large dog exercise area on the premises.
As the shelter's work is financed exclusively by donations, bequests and membership fees (TVB), this is also a long-running fundraising project, which is eligible for us as a fundraising target for the first half of 2023.

In Germany, many children still live in poverty. Unfortunately, it is precisely these people who are least able to control their situation. We have already supported campaigns for child poverty in Germany in the past and this time we would like to support Tafel Deutschland with you.

Tafel Deutschland is the umbrella organisation of the food banks in Germany. The regionally oriented Tafeln are mainly known for rescuing expired food. These are saved from disposal when they are actually still in order and distributed to socially and economically disadvantaged people for free or for a small fee.

But the Tafel Germany is an umbrella organisation.

But the food banks also create meeting places and offer a framework for social participation, which needy people lack just as much as healthy food. For example, well over a hundred food banks run special children's and youth projects, sometimes in cooperation with kindergartens and crèches. However, there is often a lack of financial resources to set up and expand child-friendly services according to need. This includes, among other things, kitchens suitable for children and pedagogical care. The umbrella organisation has set up a special fund for this purpose, which can be used, for example, to organise and support cooking courses for children and break-time meals. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

In 2017, about 48,000 homeless people lived on the streets. This does not mean people who live in shelters and are only considered homeless, but these people really do live on the street every day without a protective roof.
Even on normal days, every day is a gruelling struggle for existence and harms those affected physically and mentally. Especially in winter, this situation is dramatised by the occurrence of permafrost. Last winter, 23 homeless people in Germany froze to death. The further damage to their health cannot easily be recorded statistically, as these homeless people rarely have access to medical help.
Therefore, support is urgently needed, especially during this time. In many large German cities, such as Berlin, Hamburg, Freiburg, Dresden or Bielefeld, the German Salvation Army's emergency vehicles are therefore on the road. The teams search for homeless people in need of help at night to help them survive in the cold.

At the beginning of 2011, Salvation Army staff went on cold patrol for the first time and since the strong winter of 2012, these patrols have been expanded into a permanent service.
The donations are used to finance the operations of the vans, emergency overnight stays as well as warm meals and hot drinks for the homeless.

Water means life. That is why the non-profit organisation Viva von Agua has been campaigning for safe access to clean drinking water and basic sanitation since 2006. In the global south, various projects support a sustainable improvement of living conditions on site.

Viva con Agua supports projects in various countries according to the WASH approach. WASH stands for water, sanitation and hygiene. They work with local and international partner organisations to implement the projects, some of which are very creative.

Their focus is currently on WASH projects in South Africa, Uganda and Tanzania. These involve the construction of sanitation facilities with the help of drinking water wells, as well as so-called cloudfisher in Tanzania. There, the high altitude makes it very difficult to drill drinking water wells. The cloudfisher is a fog catcher that is able to pull water out of the air with the help of a net made of three-dimensional textile fabric. Up to 1,000 litres per day can be extracted.

In addition, there are many other projects, e.g. on the topic of solar water disinfection in India and WASH services in Nepal, which should also provide insights for future government projects. These projects do not simply build things and hand them over, but create opportunities to improve the situation on the ground in general. This can be done by establishing local institutions that take care of the facilities or by conducting hygiene workshops in schools.

In Germany, Viva con Agua attracts attention mainly through its campaigns with prominent supporters and participation in many events where the deposit cups can be donated.

The non-profit organisation Green Forest Founds is committed to climate and species protection. Trees have a high priority, because every newly planted tree helps to protect the climate. Every forest saved from deforestation supports CO2 absorption.

For this reason, Green Forest Founds has set itself the goal of creating a virgin forest on large areas. To this end, for example, land is acquired and returned to nature.  This means moving away from the monocultures that often dominated the image of German forests in the past. Monocultures grow relatively quickly, but are inferior to healthy mixed forests in terms of productivity, CO2 absorption and animal habitat.
If you now go one step further and simply allow a forest to grow without cultivation, an impressive primeval forest emerges. Such forests can be found, for example, on the border between Poland and Belarus, or in Romania. In Germany, only one thousandth of our forests corresponds to the species-rich primeval forests of yesteryear. But here, too, a rethinking of forest design has been taking place for some years now. For example, the Bavarian Forest National Park was left to its own devices. The bark beetle caused the forest to die because it ate through the existing monocultures and left behind a lot of dead wood. In the meantime, however, one can observe how the forest is coming back to life and numerous wild animals are thriving. Due to the diversity in these naturally grown forests, they provide a new habitat for various animals and are also not as susceptible to external influences.

This is exactly where Green Forest Founds comes in with its work. They acquire pieces of forest that are placed under protection and allowed to grow old without any economic use.

The Arche is a Christian children's and youth organisation founded in 1995 that is committed to combating child poverty in Germany. The main pillars of its work include meaningful leisure time activities, effective educational support, sustainable relationship work, exciting holiday camps, help and advice for parents and free meals.

The Arche is a Christian children's and youth organisation founded in 1995.

As in September 2019, we would like to use your donations to support the project "Die Arche: Mittagstisch für bedürftige Kinder". At that time, we were able to donate a total of 175€. From the donated money, the Arche finances lunches for children, because a warm lunch together is a possibility of healthy and wholesome nutrition, a community experience and the building block for a regular daily routine for children from mostly socially disadvantaged living conditions.

From mid-December to the end of March, the cold bus is on the road in Saarbrücken. They move into a site at the Römerkastell in Saarbrücken. From 9pm in the evening until 6am the next morning, anyone in need can use the service (without preconditions).

The association currently has almost 35 members and wants to offer needy people a warm place in a heated bus, drinks, food and small daily necessities during the nights in winter. Specifically, they are collecting for a new kitchen for the bus, toilets, funds for sweets as well as winter clothing.

The Dragon Heart project in Hagen is organised by the Blue Cross. It is an association with Christian values that has been active for more than 130 years and organises groups for "Alcoholics Anonymous" in many communities. However, the Dragon Heart project aims to support children of addicted parents. In Germany, every sixth child lives with an addicted or mentally ill parent.

Everyday life is much more difficult for children and adolescents due to the addiction of their parents. Half of the participating children themselves suffer from disorders such as ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) or FAS (fetal alcohol syndrome). In 2018, the prevention offer "Dragon Heart" (formerly TRAMPOLIN) was launched in Hagen. This is a project that aims to open up new perspectives for children from Hagen in North Rhine-Westphalia. There are weekly group sessions in which children and young people can talk about stressful situations. They are also supposed to learn behavioural strategies that can lead to relief. 

The Dragon Heart project collects money for excursions during the summer and autumn holidays. The aim is to enable the children and their parents to go on an overnight trip to an amusement park. It is accompanied by Blue Cross educators.

At the moment, all Ark locations are closed. Lunch counters are therefore no longer available and many families do not know how to make ends meet in the Corona crisis. The Ark continues to try to make contact with children and families in need via telephone, Whats-App and visual media.

Food and hygiene items are urgently needed in some families. The Ark is currently trying to provide food parcels to families who need help. A donation of 30€ is needed per food parcel. The food parcel campaigns are running nationwide, with collections being made for projects in Leipzig, Meißen and Hamburg, for example.

In 1877, the Berlin City Mission was founded. After the end of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 and the proclamation of the German Empire, many immigrants came to the capital. The need in Berlin grew and to improve the situation, the Berlin City Mission was founded.

Today, the Berlin City Mission mainly cares for the homeless. For example, there is cold aid, a railway station mission and Christmas dinners for the homeless. They also try to finance outpatient clinics and nursing rooms for the homeless who need medical help. On average, 40% of the homeless in Berlin are said to have a physical condition.

In the first quarter we will collect for one of the projects for homeless people in Berlin. The collected amount will then be donated to the Berlin City Mission at the end of March 2020. The project "Ambulanz & Pflegezimmer für obdachlose Menschen" is to be supported specifically.

<p>The Salvation Army tries to help the estimated 30,000 people who are homeless in Germany. There are various projects in the big cities. They range from cold buses to emergency overnight stays and emergency shelters.</p>
<p>For 50€, for example, 8 people can get an emergency overnight stay or emergency shelter. For 18€, 5 homeless people can be funded a meal with a hot drink.</p>
<p>The Salvation Army is active in major cities such as Dresden, Bielefeld, Berlin or Freiburg, for example. Since 2011, they have started the project of the cold buses. These mobile emergency vehicles make it easier to distribute sleeping bags, hot food and drinks.</p>

According to statistics, every 6th child in Germany lives in a family with an addicted and/or mentally ill parent. Children of addicted parents have problems dealing with the family situation. Feelings of guilt and shame make for a poor general condition, sometimes violence plays a role in their everyday life, and they also try to take care of ill parents.

The project "Drachenflieger" aims to bring together children of addicted parents. In a playful and protected setting, they should become aware of their own strengths, their self-esteem should be strengthened and their own needs should be better perceived. Therapeutic professionals accompany this group so that the children playfully tell each other their life stories. The conversations have an emotionally relieving function and are intended to help the children feel better.

Drachenflieger takes in children of addicted parents (alcohol, medication, illegal drugs, gambling addiction) between the ages of 6 and 10. The entire project of Caritas Wuppertal is largely financed by donations. Currently, donations are being collected for the leisure activities (handicrafts, baking and excursions).

In the Falkenberg district of Berlin, the Tierschutzverein für Berlin runs one of the largest and most modern animal shelters in Europe. Since 1841, the Tierschutzverein has been trying to help animals in need. The association now has 15,000 members.

On a total area of 16 hectares (approx. 22 football fields), more than 10,000 animals are temporarily taken in every year. An average of 1,400 animals are cared for by 180 employees. These include cats, dogs, birds, but also farm animals and exotics such as monkeys are taken in temporarily.

The shelter and the animal welfare work of the association is financed almost exclusively by donations, bequests or membership fees. In addition to the animal shelter, the association takes care of Berlin street cats (food and sterilisation) and also wants to raise awareness against factory farming. In the end, the promotion of young people is also an issue, so that animal welfare can continue in the future.

On 28 August, Greta Thunberg arrived in New York after a 2-week journey by sailboat. She initiated a first protest in front of the UN building, with rather moderate participation. Nevertheless, environmental protection is becoming more and more important.

This month (and against this background) we would like to support one of the projects of One Earth - One Ocean e.V.. The association has set itself the goal of ridding the world's waters of plastic waste.

To this end, they have set up a project called "One Earth - One Ocean e.V.".

The association has developed special ships that collect and recycle plastic waste. The donations are to go to the "Seekuh" ship project, which is to set sail and pick up plastic from the Baltic Sea. The voyage begins this year in Kiel. Although the ship is still conventionally powered by diesel (not crude oil), they want to try to switch to electric propulsion with solar energy in the future. The total donation needed for the mission is €5,000, so perhaps some in the community would like to contribute a small part to improving the environment.

After our big 20,000 Euro Mega Raffle was successful and a total of 734 prizes of 25 Euro PSC each were awarded,
a residual amount of 1,650 Euros remained in the "raffle fund".

We have decided to divide this amount between the 3 previous fundraising projects.
- 550 euros will go to the fundraising campaign of July 2019: Die Arche - Mittagstisch für bedürftige Kinder (The Ark - lunch for needy children).
- 550 euros will go to the fundraising campaign of August 2019: Cold aid for the homeless from the Salvation Army.
- 550 Euro will go to the fundraiser of September 2019: Ship Manatee against plastic waste in the sea: One Earth - One Ocean e.V.

You can find more information by clicking on the green button.

The Salvation Army is trying to help the estimated 30,000 people living on the streets in Germany. Reasonable clothing, a warm meal, a protective roof in the form of emergency shelters and mobile outreach vehicles, are intended to help the homeless in their daily struggle for existence.

The Salvation Army's cold strips have been around since 2011. In large cities like Dresden, Bielefeld, Berlin or Freiburg, so-called cold buses are regularly on the road on cold nights with sub-zero temperatures. They seek out places with homeless people, distribute soups, encourage people, possibly drive them to night cafés or give away sleeping bags.

According to the Salvation Army, 5 warm meals + hot drinks for homeless people should cost 18 euros, one shift of the bus for cold relief causes costs of 120 euros.

The Ark fights for equal opportunities for children. According to current statistics, every 4th child goes to school without breakfast. A warm meal during the day as well as the communal experience of eating together are an important part of a regular daily routine.

For this reason, the Arche organises a common and free meal in its houses for children from socially disadvantaged living conditions on 5 days a week. As a rule, this is a lunch when the children come to the Arche's facilities. However, in some homes there is also an alternative shared meal in the evening.

These campaigns are taking place in many German cities, including projects in Berlin and Munich.

The total amount collected will be donated to the Ark for the proposed project in the first week of August 2019.