The Canberra Times - Letter to the Editor:

A generous Santa with an Aussie accent is helping Malawi

26/12/2008 1:00:00 AM

Federal Assistant Treasurer Chris Bowen penned an article last week titled ''The pennies we give for foreign aid are far too few''. A key sentence was ''We need to ensure that the voiceless around the world are not the silent victims of the global financial crisis.''

As Australia's smallest AIDS-care agency (and with no paid staff) we are engaged in vital education projects in one of the world's poorest nations, Malawi, and the financial crisis suddenly brought our work to a standstill. We urgently needed the money to feed over 400 primary school children until their government feeding program kicks in next April, and our three-quarters completed secondary school there lacked the money for completion and it's due to open in the new year.

I appealed to Bowen to play Santa. He huddled with the parliamentary secretary for international development assistance, Bob McMullan, and within hours emails were flying between Canberra, Frankston, Malawi, and an Australian embassy in southern Africa.

Yes, there is a Santa Claus, he has an Aussie accent and he's now helping us feed and educate the voiceless in Malawi. Many thanks.

Brian Haill,
President,
The Australian AIDS Fund  Inc.