Welcome to the stars, intrepid traveller.

Hi everyone,

Here's some information on charities below:

Below are the websites for organisations where you can volunteer or donate to support children around the world:

http://www.savethechildren.org.au/ Save the Children Australia. Save the Children also works in different countries around the world.  You can also donate here to support people whose lives have been devastated by Typhoon Bopha in the Philippines.

http://www.avert.org/aids-projects.htm    AVERT is a UK based charity that raises money to help people around the world to raise awareness and respond to HIV and AIDS. You can donate at their website. This link has information on how their projects help educate people about AIDS, their legal rights and addressing sexual violence.

http://child-aid.org/ Child Aid raises money to train teachers, deliver books and teach children how to read.

If you can't donate, you can always raise awareness - which makes a huge difference. Thanks so much! :)

Edited to add: I have found information from raremedium.org http://raremedium.org/2007/10/31/charity-navigators-vital-mission-hides-flawed-rankings/ that Charity Navigator has flaws in gathering / interpreting information and deciding which charities are accountable, transparent and spend the most money on the people they assist. I do apologise for putting up information on Charity Navigator before.

http://beastaralliance.org/resources The Be A Star Alliance is nation wide campaign working to prevent and fight bullying in the US. This site has a list of anti bullying websites and resources, and anti bullying organisations (including ones run by children, parents and teachers). The Stomp Out bullying has spreadsheets that do not provide much information on stopping or recognising bullies. However, they have a free and confidential chat line, which is valuable.

http://www.pta.org/2885.htm The National Parent Teacher Association (PTA) is the largest child advocacy volunteer organisation in North America.

This site has fantastic resources on:

- Learning how to form a strong, loving bond with your teenage children. This is crucial to spotting and combatting bullying.

- Discussing hate and violence with children. It also includes Spanish factsheets on TVsafety/onlinesafety/music/movies/cellphone (mobile phone) bullying.


- You can sign up to free wireless AMBER alerts in Spanish. This service helps you notify law enforcement quickly if your child has been kidnapped. It is free, and there's no fee for signing up. You can cancel/unsubscribe whenever you want.

How wireless Amber Alerts are sent: http://wirelessamberalerts.wirelessfoundation.org/howwirelessamberalertswork.htm

Frequently asked questions on Wireless Amber Alerts:

http://wirelessamberalerts.wirelessfoundation.org/frequentlyaskedquestions.htm

To report a missing, abducted or lost child in USA, please call your local law enforcement agency or National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST.

http://www.thetrevorproject.org/survivalkit The Trevor Project has a survival kit, with 25 Youth brochures, 25 Wallet cards, 1 List of Books and Films for LGBTQ Youth,1 Educator Resource Guide, 1 copy of the Academy-Award winning film Trevor, and 5 Stickers with information for The Trevor Lifeline

The Trevor Project’s staff regularly provides technical assistance training on how to best use the Survival Kit through a one-hour teleconference and webinar training. If you are interested in participating in a free, quarterly webinar on how to best use your Survival Kit, please email Guide.

You can also find your local mental health/spiritual/accommodation/legal/community centres/under 13 /bisexual/transgender resources by using this site. Just type in your country, state, zip code. This site lists resources in America, Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom: http://www.thetrevorproject.org/youth/local-resources