In the last few months, we have seen some amazing fundraising initiatives, some of which are part of our regular campaigns and others are initiated and carried out by our friends and donors. We are always happy to see that people, be they children or adults, take the opportunity to raise funds for Unity Foundation and thereby supporting our cause in a very creative way.

One great example are the birthday campaigns. It is touching to see when individuals decide to forgo material gifts in exchange to donate their birthday or other milestone event to a charity. It is even more heart-warming and inspiring when it is children who decide to not receive toys and gifts. In this case it was Noah Piff who celebrated his 10th year birthday in May 2017 and approached his parents telling them he “simply didn’t need any gifts” and instead wanted his friends and family to make a donation in favor of Unity Foundation.

This selfless act allowed Noah to raise an amazing 1470 Eur in support of Unity Foundation’s project in Malawi! This amount, along with any contributions, big or small, can go a long way in positively impacting educational projects in local communities around the world.

On behalf of Unity Foundation and our partner from Malawi, we would like to extend a huge thank you to Noah for his generous act. We wish Noah a wonderful year ahead and have no doubt that inspiring acts such as this will make huge impacts on lives for generations to come.

You can watch a video message from Noah himself by clicking here

Another annual fundraising activity is the ING Night Marathon. We would like to sincerely thank all the 26 runners of the Linklaters & Unity Foundation team for having completed this year’s ING Night Marathon, despite the difficult weather conditions they were facing (28° still at 7pm)!

We are incredibly grateful for the energy and effort exerted to meet this challenge year after year and the contribution to help promote Unity Foundation and our message of empowering local communities all over the world to become take their development into their hands.

A special thank you goes to our long-time partner, Linklaters, for their 10,000 € donation and their continuous support. For five years the Linklaters & Unity Foundation team has been running the ING Night Marathon together, and we are already looking forward to see all of you again next year.

Another fantastic initiative is fundraising through music. On the 13th of May, Martine Jason and Lynn Orazi, two classical pianists, organized yet another concert in Schwebach in favor of Unity Foundation and raised 450€ . The two musicians have both been classically trained and have played together on several occasions in the past. As for their last concert, they decided to collect donations in favor of Unity Foundation to contribute towards the educational projects that we support in Latin America, Africa and Asia. During a little break, Yves Wiltgen had the opportunity to briefly present Unity Foundation and our approach to development.

Finally, as a longstanding partnership, namely since 2011, Hotel International in Clervaux has been a loyal partner of Unity Foundation, providing continuous support by participating in the “Check Out For Education” campaign, among others. This campaign gives customers the opportunity to add a donation in favour of Unity Foundation to their check-out bill at the end of their stay.

In 2016, Hotel International has continued to work with us and has managed to raise € 1.369,03 in favour of the educational projects which are supported by Unity Foundation all over the world. This generous donation will enable our local partners in Latin America, Africa and Asia to empower local communities to take charge of their own educational needs and to safeguard their right to be the protagonists of their own development.

Yves Wiltgen was invited for an official check remittance with Mrs Federmeyer on the 19th of June 2017. We would like to thank Hotel International and their entire team for their continued commitment and support of Unity Foundation!

And finally, motivated to invest in sustainable development efforts and convinced that education is central in this respect, the LSZ (Lëtzebuerger Studenten Zürich) members have chosen to support Unity Foundation and the projects we support. A group of LSZ representatives visited our offices at the beginning of this month to learn more about our daily work and our framework of development.

On this occasion they officially presented us with a donation of € 1,500,00 representing part of the result of the annual event organized by them, the “Züricher Bal”.

A big thank you to the LSZ for this great initiative!