Cards from Africa

From my brother's friend, Chris Page, at http://www.cardsfromafrica.com/ :

In April a friend from my church in Rwanda, and someone I didn't know from YWAM Switzerland, both asked if they could nominate CfA in a competition BBC World were running, in conjunction with Newsweek and Shell, called World Challenge. It was for businesses that are innovative and are benefitting communities socially, environmentally and financially. Of course I said that they could, but didn't really think any more about it.

Then I got a phone call from the BBC in June saying that over 800 businesses had entered the competition from over 120 countries, and that their expert panel of judges had chosen CfA to go to the final 12! They told me they were going to send a film crew out to make a 12-minute documentary to show on BBC World, and for writing an article in Newsweek magazine!

Well, you can imagine we were just a little more than just speechless for all of about 5 seconds, and then I shouted with delight to just about everyone I met for the next few days, including Jesus! The film crew (actually just one person!) came and went in July. Viewers of BBC World, and readers of Newsweek will be asked to go online and vote for their favourite of the 12 businesses. The winning business receives $20,000 and the two runners-up will receive $10,000 each, with the prize presented to them in the Hague , in the Netherlands ! Of course, both the publicity and the prize money will enormously help our marketing efforts, and we're very, very excited indeed.

They have told us that they will be showing the documentary of CfA at the following dates and times:

Saturday 14th October at 0930 & 1630 GMT& Sunday 15th October at 0230, 1330 & 2030 GMT

Other businesses will be shown the week before (same days and times) and for 4 weeks afterwards (2 businesses each weekend, for 6 weeks).

The article will go out in Newsweek on 23rd October 2006 (which they start selling on the 16th Oct), so please buy a copy, read it, pass it on to your friends, vote for us online, and then ask your friends, your neighbours, your postman and in fact anyone you communicate with over the next 4 weeks to vote for us online! Please!

Here's the link to vote for us - and a short video clip to whet your appetite:

http://www.theworldchallenge.co.uk/card.php

Pass on the message :-)