That Was The (Media) Year That Was!

Over this past week we’ve been looking back at our program work during 2014 through our social media channels. However, the Friends 20th Anniversary Year also saw that work featuring strongly across both local and international media, putting the spotlight not only onto the significant positive impact of our work, but also onto many of the important child protection messages we wish to share with the world. Here follows some selected highlights from that coverage. In January 2014, The Guardian featured our call to end orphanage tourism in its pages and February saw the BBC feature the campaign as part of its Fake Britain TV show. February also saw features on 20 years of Friends in the two major English language newspapers in Cambodia – Cambodia Daily and Phnom Penh Post. March, and prime time Dutch TV highlighted the orphanage issue followed by a Reuters feature including our Thailand program in April. In May major Thai social media platform Coconuts featured our Bangkok program extensively and June saw Friends France team appearing on France 24 TV Channel discussing orphanage tourism. July, and Friends Suisse President Emmanuelle spoke up in Le Temps on the subject of pity charity, whilst in August Spanish media group EFE published a piece on harmful institutional care in Cambodia featuring our advocacy work.  In September Al Jazeera talked to us about the challenges facing reform of Cambodia’s orphanage system, and in October PATA members Wild Asia featured our ChildSafe campaigns in a major online interview. The Bangkok Post covered our social business approach in detail in November and in December we filmed an extensive piece with Channel News Asia on why donors should stop supporting harmful institutions, to be broadcast in January 2015. 2015 will also see the launch of our new international and local ChildSafe campaigns, so we anticipate another busy year on the media front for us – and thank you to all who continue to both read and share our media coverage, you are helping the world to wake up to the many challenges we face in supporting marginalized children across the globe!