Hey everybody!

As many of you know, I've left the UK to volunteer as a Fundraising and PR officer for a school for street children in Saigon, Vietnam (http://www.15mayschool.org/)

One of the ongoing fundraising programmes they have been running for some years is their Charity Christmas Cards, which are sold to businesses and shipping within Saigon and to a certain extent in the UK, USA, Canada, France and Australia.

We have an agreement with TNT to send these cards for free(when sent in bulk) and are looking for shops in the UK who would like to sell these. At present we are taking photos for the new cards (which are being designed by a British expat graphic designer and we expect to be a fair bit classier than those on the website at the moment-tho we still have many packs of those if they take your fancy!) and hope to have samples ready shortly. All design etc is done by volunteers and roughly 95% of the cost goes directly to running the school.

Additionally, we will be sending cards to previous volunteers in the UK to distribute to the individuals who have ordered cards through our website, and would very much appreciate it should affiliates who run sites with 'Christmas Card' pages be prepared to donate us a link. Please PM me if you're happy to do so - I anticipate the website will be shifted around a fair bit soon once I get my hands on it!

The 15 May school is a school for street children and disadvantage youth in the centre of Saigon. As well as providing standard education we offer vocational programmes in areas such as cookery, computing, hospitality, hair and beauty and tailoring in order to give children career prospects and a chance to escape the street. As well as providing shelter to 30 children who have noone to support them - perhaps because they have been abandoned, their parents have been arrested for drugs, or must spend too much time scraping a living to give the children the support they need - the school also provides training to over 250 children from disadvantaged backgrounds in teh surrounding area.

In addition to the vocational and curricular training offered to the children, there are dance, theatre and circus skills workshops, to help the children express themselves, build up their self esteem and gain a sense of self worth.

If you have any questions or if you are interested in supporting the 15 May School please don't hesitate to get in touch by pm or on the forum.

Many thanks,
Jonny Platt