Maly from France sent us this regarding Ian Thorpe's foundation to help elevate and educate Australia's indigenous population.Here is a brief overview of the organization from the Foundation For Youth website:
With a vision of ‘Embracing Humanity by Nurturing Children’, Ian Thorpe’s Fountain for youth will focus on advocacy for the needs of children living in great disadvantage. We will build alliances with the corporate sector, organisations and general community to raise awareness and funds to bring positive changes to the lives of these children by improving health and education. We recognise that education is a crucial pathway to better health.
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Ian Thorpe believes that all children should be given the opportunity to live a healthy and fulfilling life. He understands his position and his ability to bring important issues to the forefront. Fountain for youth was established to focus on areas where he knows he can make an impact and he is passionate about projects that will improve health and education of children, having a positive impact on their lives.
From the Herald Sun:
Out leaps swimming superstar Ian Thorpe with a precious cargo - hundreds of books. Every child will go home with a selection of titles including Where The Wild Things Are and Dr Seuss.
"For some of these kids it is the first book that they have seen," Thorpe said.
The literacy backpack is one of his favourite programs carried out by the Fountain for Youth Foundation - the charity he set up as an 18 year old.
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5 comments:
A wonderful post to put up for Thanksgiving.
Hope you & your American readers are having a fine day with much to be thankful for!
Both Australia and the United States owe England a piece of turkey for sending us their rejects. ;-) Thanks guys.
Actually it was only Australia we actually sent out rejects to! :-)
Well, don't want to get too off topic, but there's a reason why the decision to set up a convict colony in Australia was in 1786, only a couple of years after American independence.
I have some skepticism about celebrity charities. In Australia at least, charitable donations are tax deductible. If you're going to be paying millions of dollars in income tax, you may as well instead set up your own charity, name it after yourself and get a bit of media coverage. I don't know how much Ian has put into Foundation for Youth, but I imagine quite a lot of it otherwise would've ended up in government programs for healthcare, education, infrastructure etc.
I am not saying that that this statement applies to Ian Thorpe but sometimes people can do the right thing for the wrong reasons and though the original motives seem skewed, the outcome is sublime.
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