Please note your donation is denominated in US Dollar.

We're very pleased to receive the following message from Jenny Bowen the Founder & Executive Director of Half the Sky Foundation,her work is inspirational.  Our fund raising will be closed by 31 Dec, please continue your support by donating to us in this festival season.

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  Dear Friends, the tremendous Global Runners and supporters!

 Congratulations on your extraordinary efforts in running - and of course supporting - the Shanghai half-marathon for the benefit of children in Sichuan, we are awed by the achievements of both the runners and the supporters!!   As you can imagine, there are heart-aches and also great joys in Half the Sky’s work in providing loving care to children who do not have families of their own to nurture and cherish them, to provide all they need to grow and thrive in the world.  Half the Sky provides the care and love that the children need but have lost – we become their family – you are now their family too.  In Sichuan, together, we are providing for the emotional healing of children who have lost parents, homes, teachers, schools and friends.  You are making it possible for these children to recover emotionally, to heal so they might look forward to a future with hope.  It is one of the enormous joys of my work to thank-you for your help – and to let you know how much your support means, it really is life-saving, thank-you one and all.

 Warmest wishes this holiday season to you and yours,

 Jenny Bowen

Founder & Executive Director

Half the Sky Foundation

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 More pictures could be found in Global Runners' page in Facebook.com

Our Global Runner Katen shares his half marathon debut with us:

The Race: The race took place at 7.30 am yesterday (Sunday 30th). There were over 20,000 runners participating in the Marathon, the Half Marathon and a shorter fun run, all starting together. I think the majority (or at least half this number) were running the half marathon.

 The expected rain did not materialise and it was a beautiful crisp winter morning with a clear blue sky.

 It was also freezing cold but that did not matter during the 45 minute wait for the start because all 20,00 runners were huddled together in a kind of street long corral infront of the starting line. We all seemed to move together as the runners sang the Chinese national anthem before the race countdown.

 The whole thing was a surreal experience.

 Before the race we were given a capsule of tiny heart protecting musk pills made from an expensive Chinese herb. These were to be taken in case emergency heart attack during the race. They are intended to open up your arteries to help porridge blood flow better. Needless to say, most of these were discarded.

 We were also given individual computer chips to be worn on our shoes. These would ensure an accurate time record and stop cheating. The idea was to run through computerised detection points at the start and end of the race as well as a couple of other places along route which would record our individual chip numbers. Hence, it did not matter that it may have taken people at the back 10/15 more minutes to cross the start line.

 We started in the Centre of Shanghai (Century Square, Nanjing Road) and the streets were lined with thousands of retired lady cheer leaders entertaining us with synchronised fan dances, Tai chi and bat/ball dances. There were also thousands of soldiers and police who appeared to have closed off several major road junctions along the route for us without adequate warning to the motorists who used there roads. Consequently there was plenty of stranded traffic of all sorts (car's, busses and lorries) who had to wait upwards of three hours. The occupants of these vehicles also lined the route to cheer us along.

 The full and half marathon routes separated at 16km and my heart went out to the full marathon runners who split away with 26km still to run.

 I had been running a good race but was starting to fade and was overtaken at around 18km by a very old man with long grey hair and hairy ears who was running bare foot with his computer chip tied to his ankle. That (together with eye of the tiger on my ipod) spurred me on and I caught him near the end but I was also over taken at the 20km mark by 3 young girl runners.

 I ran a personal best time of 1 hour 43 mins and 59 seconds. This was 15 mins faster than I have run that distance before (twice in training) and 20 mins faster than the target I set for myself. This was just under 5min per km so an average speed of 12km per hour. My race position was 545th.

 All the Global Runners in our team (from Hong Kong, Shanghai and Taiwan)finished the race. Our team captain Stephen O'Leary (on his first half marathon) ran 1 hour 23 mins which was 30th overall. The winning time was around 1 hour 10 mins.

 The Fund Raising: Thankyou again for all your contributions. As you know, we are raising funds to build an orphanage in Sichuan Province for children orphaned during the earthquake. We have made good progress towards our target of US$75,000 but still have some way to go. Hence contributions are still very welcome. The fund raising site will remain open until Dec 31st and we will keep running in races until then.

 A number of you incentivised me by offering challenging (and sometimes complicated) formula based pledges based on my completing the race and my time. You should now have the information above to work out your contributions.

by Katen Popat

 Global Runner Mark Woodhams wrote a poem for his fellow runners..

 "The terrible Sichuan quake is no longer a front-page story, but Half the Sky will not forget the children who will feel the hurt for months and years to come.  Children who've witnessed so much and who have lost everything that was safe and routine and "normal" often experience emotions that overwhelm them.  They fear losing those who are close to them.  But children are naturally resilient; most will recover in time.  Almost all of them need help during the long months of healing.  Your donations to this project made HTS's work in Sichuan possible." [extracted from Half the Sky newsleter]

Global Runners funding raising project is featured in TeamFirstgiving. You could read more about the background of the Global Runners.  It started from a simple ideas about a group of over-worked bankers who want to....Run for fun, run for fitness and run for good causes.  We have started an internet page for extending the Global Runners concept, or you could contact Ricky Lai if you want to set up a Global Runners Team in your office and to exchange ideas.

 Team Hong Kong: Daisy Kong, Ehren Vokes, Henry Poon, Javier Salgado, Jim Chan, Katen Popat, Mark Kennedy, Mark Woodhams, Mel Blackford, Paul White, Rajiv Rai, Ricky Lai, Stephen O'Leary (Captain), Stephen Tam, Susan Urkevich.

  Team Shanghai: Anderson Au, Chek Ping Chua, Gerard Haughey,  Jonathan Cheng, Les Goble, Malachy Mcallister (Captain), Nick Liu, Simon Vickery and Richard Yorke

 Team Taipei: Nick Winsor (Captain) and more next time.

对于我们中的大多数人来说,半程马拉松是一项极具挑战性的运动。而此次, 通过协助半边天基金会为四川大地震的灾后重建工作募集资金,这项运动将不仅富有挑战,而且充满意义。募集资金的数目,直接决定着我们此次活动影响力的大小。比较理想的计划是,香港, 台北和上海地区的参与人员将联合筹集7.5万美元,用于建立一个新的儿童关爱中心并维持其一年的运营。我们将在此定期更新更为详细的活动进展情况,欢迎随时关注!

 "Half the Sky has made a long-term commitment to help heal the children who were traumatized by the terrible earthquake of May 12, 2008. Thanks to your support and, in cooperation with China's Ministry of Civil Affairs, the US National Center for School Trauma and Bereavement and Sichuan University's Huaxi Mental Health Centre, HTS is creating 10 "BigTop" Activity Centers in refugee settlements near the epicenter. Each BigTop offers children a safe place to be children again - with preschool, after-school / weekend art, dance, music, sports and games as well as training for caregivers in providing emotional support to traumatized children"