Rebecca Lester writes...
To whom it may concern,
My name is Rebecca Lester. I am 12 years old and live in Toronto. I spent three months this past summer traveling through southern Africa with my family. We visited a lot of villages in Namibia, Botswana and South Africa that were overcome by HIV/AIDS. One small school that we visited in Northern Namibia had about 500 students and over 1/3 of the students were orphans. We spent part of the day visiting classrooms and singing with the kids at the school. They also got dressed up in traditional costume and put on a show for us with dancing, drumming and singing. It was really cool but also left us felling sad about the fact that many of these students had no parents because of HIV/AIDS.
I knew that I needed to find a way to reach out and help. I also wanted to let people back home know how serious the situation in Africa really is. Even though I had read about the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the newspapers before I went to Africa, I really didn’t understand how bad things were. One week after we got home, we were walking through the Word on the Street Fair, and heard about the Stephen Lewis Foundation. It was totally inspiring and gave me the idea to get involved too.
I just celebrated my Bat Mitzvah on February 12, 2005, and I decided to donate the money I received in gifts to the Stephen Lewis Foundation. I talked about what I saw in Africa to my guests – both the beauty of Africa and the problems. I also told them all about the Stephen Lewis Foundation and the work you are doing and handed out information from your foundation.
It is an honour to present you with a cheque today for $3000. Your organization helped me to feel like I can make a difference. I feel like I just accomplished something very big, and I hope that the donation I am sending will really help make a difference. I couldn’t have done any of that, if it wasn’t for your organization. Thank you for the wonderful work that you are doing and for giving me a chance to help the children and women in Africa.
Sincerely,
Rebecca Lester