Today, an estimated eight million children live in orphanages worldwide. 80 % of these children are not actually orphans – they have living parents but have been abandoned because of poverty, disabilities or discrimination. This has heartbreaking consequences for the innocent children who are now forced to live under troubling conditions: In some orphanages, mortality rates can even be as high as 80 % and when a child leaves an orphanage, they are 10 times more likely to enter prostitution and 40 times more likely to get a criminal record. Instead of funding orphanages, it can be 10 times more cost effective to support struggling parents with social services.
This year, Hope and Homes for Children started the ‘End the Silence’ campaign in hopes of reaching over 120,000 children across Rwanda and Uganda who are currently confined to orphanages or at risk of being separated from their families and placed in institutions. ‘End the Silence’ is asking everyone to share the most precious musical memories from their childhood. By doing this, you will be helping to end the silence for the eight million children confined to orphanages around the world without love, family and music.
Among the stars who have already contributed to the campaign are Ozzy Osbourne, Noel Gallagher, Royal Blood, Duran Duran, Bastille, Anne-Marie, Hozier, Jonas Blue, Rudimental, Paul Simonon, Damon Albarn and The Script. These incredible names join Elton John, Ed Sheeran, Paul Weller, Emeli Sande, Paloma Faith, KT Tunstall, Sigrid, Wolf Alice, Huey Morgan and Kasabian, who have already released videos as a part the of End the Silence campaign.
Ozzy Osbourne, who chose The Beatles’ ‘She Loves You’ says: “That song changed my life…had such an impact on me…/…when that song came on, I knew from then on what I wanted to do with my life.”
The ‘End the Silence’ campaign’s goal is to create the world’s largest online musical memory time capsule before Christmas, while raising £1.5m in donations. Every pound donated before 27th December will be doubled by the UK Government. You can read more about the campaign and donate here.