Happy New Year!

You have helped make 2009 a fantastic year for SCIAF. Here are just some of the highlights.

Miss Scotland meets Bella Docherty from Notre Dame Primary (Photo: Kieran Dodds)

January

– SCIAF joined forces with over 170 charities from around the world to launch our Climate Justice campaign. Hundreds of schools from all over Scotland got involved.

February – famous faces, including Miss Scotland, The Proclaimers and Ally McCoist, backed SCIAF’s WEE BOX, BIG Change Lent Campaign. Pupils from four Glasgow schools came to the star studded launch event at the Kelvingrove museum.

March – Our partner, Dr Ricardo Navarro visited schools across the country to talk about how climate change is affecting people in El Salvador and what SCIAF is doing to help.

April – Hundreds of people swapped chocolate for Real Gift chickens at Easter giving communities living in poverty access to plenty of tasty, fresh eggs.

Provost celebrates fair trade (Photo: SCIAF)

May

– Your WEE BOX money came pouring in. Young people from across the country held sponsored walks and runs, coffee mornings, cake sales, fetes, quiz nights, dances, discos and fashion shows during Lent (and throughout the year) raising hundreds of thousands of pounds for SCIAF’s work in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

June – Glasgow’s Lord Provost, Robert Winter visited SCIAF to learn more about our work and meet pupils from ten Glasgow schools who have teamed up to promote fair trade.

Taking the message to Gordon Brown (photo: SCIAF)

July

– We brought SCIAF’s Climate Justice message to Scotland’s largest music festival, T in the Park. More than 500 people signed our campaign postcards!

August – SCIAF got an early Christmas present when a painting by artist John Bellany went under the hammer at an Edinburgh auction house. The picture – which featured on First Minister Alex Salmond’s Christmas cards last year – raised £10,000 which was split equally between four Scottish charities.

September – Cardinal O’Brien called for rich countries to take tough action on climate change when he represented SCIAF at UN talks in New York.

Sister Rosemary meets Scottish school children (Photo: The Herald)

October

– Pupils from St Columba’s High in Dunfermline handed over 5,000 SCIAF Climate Justice campaign postcards to Prime Minister Gordon Brown. And SCIAF pledged £50,000 in emergency aid to help thousands of people who lost their homes following a series of natural disasters in Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia and Samoa.

November – Our partner Sister Rosemary visited schools across Scotland to talk about how your support is helping young women and former child soldiers in Uganda. And River City stars Libby McArthur and Deirdrie Davis went crackers for SCIAF’s Christmas Real Gifts.

December – By the end of the year, SCIAF had visited around 230 schools across Scotland to talk about our work and thank staff and pupils for their generosity.

Thanks again for all your support. We couldn’t have done it without you and we hope that with your help, 2010 will be an even bigger success for SCIAF and all the people we work for across Africa, Asia and Lain America.