Ten Thousand Bowls of Soup

Aim

Raising money for Médecins Sans Frontières for their work with migrant communities throughout the world.

About Ten Thousand Bowls of Soup

We are a group of a dozen friends who like thousands of others have been moved by the hardship faced by families in the migrant camps of the Mediterranean countries and by the work of voluntary organisations in bringing help, friendship and dignity to these communities.

The son of one of our group, Henry, volunteered in one of the many kitchens which spontaneously emerged to fill the gaps that were painfully evident in the provision of basic necessities to these communities by governments and overstretched NGO’s. Whilst there he came across Médecins Sans Frontières on a daily basis and spoke to us of the tremendous work they performed day after day after day, often in the most difficult of circumstances.

We wanted to do what we could to help and it became clear to us that the best way of having a positive impact would be to help organisations such as Médecins Sans Frontières continue their work by raising money on their behalf. Henry’s kitchen often prepared as many as ten thousand bowls of soup in a single day and using that as inspiration we would like to raise ten thousand pounds from this crowdfunding.

What will Ten Thousand Pounds achieve?

As winter approaches the pressures facing those forced to live in the harsh conditions of the migrant camps increases and the need for medical help becomes ever more acute .

Ten thousand pounds will keep two Médecins Sans Frontières doctors in the camps for four months, enabling them to alleviate suffering and distress throughout the desperate winter months.

We hope to reach our target by the end of January 2018 but will distribute funds as quickly as possible so that your donations can be deployed all the sooner by MSF to help those in need.

What makes this appeal unusual?

Within our group we have a storyteller, an illustrator, two musicians and a publisher and with their help and the support of local businesses we have produced an illustrated children’s book and audiobook which we are selling to raise money for Médecins Sans Frontières. It was listed as one of summer’s hottest reads by The Sunday Mail and children’s author, Nick Butterworth, described it as “Fun, quirky and moving. A brilliant idea.” The actor Richard E Grant rightly summed it up by saying “Buying this helps build new lives”.

The book is very gentle and children love the illustrations and the story and in the car or at home, dancing away to the original audiobook music is great fun.  Please, check out our website, Facebook and Twitter pages - the book and CD will form the basis of our Rewards for your kind generosity.

* Photographs by kind permission of MSF, © Paul Hansen / Degens Nyheter, (c) Avramidis Alexandros / MSF and © Gemma Gillie / MSF

This project successfully funded on 15th January 2018