Falling Whistles

This post will be considerably shorter than my last for two reasons:

1. It's late (for me :P)
2. The website of this charity is far more eloquent and revelatory than I could ever be.

I think my favorite new charity is Falling Whistles, which is based on the fact that in the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (where's the Congo? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo what war?! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kivu_conflict). 

A person, I'm not exactly sure of his name, he doesn't seem to advertise it, went to Africa with TOMS for a shoe drop a few years ago. When he had finished his work with TOMS, he decided to travel through various countries and see as much of Africa as he could. When he reached the DRC, he realized that the war down there was much worse than most people had ever imagined. Not only is it the deadliest conflict since World War II with more than 5 million casualties, but also, since there are so many dead and wounded, children are being sent into battle every day to fight wars for grown men sitting in air conditioned armor-plated vehicles (or better yet, a cozy building in a large city somewhere). The guy, who had known about the child soldiers and the charitable organization Invisible Children (which I will also discuss, in another post), was not only surprised by the conflict, but he was appalled by the stories some refugee boys told him. One of them was about the children who are too small to carry a gun, and so are sent to the front lines armed with only a whistle to draw the enemies' attention and serve as a barrier for the first shots.

So, he wrote a journal entry shortly after speaking with the boys he came across (http://www.fallingwhistles.com/story/story.html?keepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=575&width=960). At that moment, he decided to do something, and formed his charity, Falling Whistles.

I have yet to personally support this charity through donation or the purchase of a whistle, but I intend to as soon as I have some money to spare. I want a whistle so I can use it to spread the word about the atrocities of the war in the Congo, and to help those poor children who grew up in such violence that they draw pictures of machine guns for fun. I want to be a whistle blower for peace.The homepage of Falling Whistles is here: http://www.fallingwhistles.com/. Please watch the video that plays before directing you to their main page, if you can. Also, turn your sound on. They have an amazing PR team. I've only just realized in writing this that their Youtube channel is apparently gone for some reason. Hopefully it will be back up soon.

Again, thank you for reading, and please help save some lives! :)