The first ever Change for Change was on Tuesday November 16 in the JDUC and what a great day it was!!!!!!!! We collected tons of change and if you noticed we had it all on display on the "Wall of Duct Tape" behind the booth. We also had an awesome bake sale with some extremely delicious baked goods that were definitely hard to resist. Last but not least, we had the adorably cute Bruce, the undeniable centre of attention who knew how to work the crowd. Check out the the wonderful "Wall of Duct Tape" and QFTCers at work:

We raised close to $200 and we would like to thank each and everyone one of you who came out and supported QFTC as this money will go to a school-building project in Kenya, and every cent counts. We'd like to thank the Events team who helped created, organized and planned this event and everyone who was involved. We look forward to having another great Change for Change next year!!!!!

Stay tuned for our concert in February!!!!!!

Change for Change!

Hi everyone!

After much anticipation QFTC is here to announce their brand spanking new event, drum roll please.............. CHANGE FOR CHANGE!!!!

It will be taking place this Tuesday, November 16, 2008 from 10 am to 4pm to compete with other Queen's organizations for your change. All change collected by QFTC will go to a school-building project in Kenya. A booth will be set up in the lower caleigh in the JDUC, along with collecting change we have some more awesome things happening. Delicious baked goods, and an adorably cute puppy will be on hand to take a picture with, and to top it all off we will be raffling off a copy of "Me to We" signed by Marc Kielberger and a Me to We t-shirt.
So if you're in the JDUC neighborhood and have extra change in the deep corners of your pocket drop by our booth to help and to learn more about Free the Children.

See you there!

Hey everyone, this is your brand spanking new first year rep about to make his debut blog post so please bear with me. Since all this is pretty much new to me, I figured I'll just wet my feet a bit and post this depressing video of child labour (it was very depressing for me =( )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8ajmDxRHZQ

This video was compiled by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and after some more digging I found some additional stats from their site:

• Globally, 1 in 6 children work
• 218 million children aged 5 - 17 are involved in child labour world wide
• 126 million children work in hazardous conditions
• The highest numbers of child labourers are in the Asia/Pacific region, where there are 122 million working children
• The highest proportion of child labourers is in Sub Saharan Africa, where 26% of children (49 million) are involved in work.

Check that out.. 218 million children are involved in child labour world wide. That's like... (gets calculator) almost 7 times the population of Canada!! The thing to remember is that some of these children are lured by the prospects of job opportunities which they can't afford to ignore if they want to put food on the family's table. Unfortunately, child labour is merely the tip of an enormous iceberg of a whole slew of child rights problems that are common today: child soldiers, physical/sexual abuse, child refugees, substandard education just to name a few. As an FTCer, this was a good wake up call for me to continue pushing forwards in our goals and I hope it's done the same for you. All right, that's all the spiel I've got to share for now, I'm looking forward to continuing work with you guys in the future and you're all awesome. Peacee

Daniel

Happy November!
Happy Belated Halloween! Queen's Free the Children teamed up with Meal Exchange and Students Against Poverty for Trick-or-Eat on Friday to collect non perishable food items for local food banks and shelters. Luckily for us the weather was awesome and QFTC were all dressed up as hippies and we were rockin' the peace signs. We got a lot of support from the Kingston community who were more than happy to donate. Being able to work within the Kingston area allows us to lend a helping hand while interacting and understanding the issues that the community faces. In total, 80 volunteers collected approximately 800 items to help those in need, which makes a huge difference. Check out some photos of QFTC at work:

We'd like to thank all those volunteers who came out it as it was greatly appreciated we're looking forward to your support and enthusiasm for next year.

Stay tuned for exciting events in November!